T3

I went and saw Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines last night with Chris. I’d gone in expecting a truly bad movie, in the way that all James Cameron films manage to irk me. I hadn’t heard that he wasn’t involved. Instead, Jonathon Mostow, of U-571 fame, was at the helm, and he brought alot of the same intensity to this film as he did that one.

(warning, some spoilers ahead)

So I’m a huge Claire Danes fan. I can’t really explain it, as her voice kinda aggravates me, but I think I still miss My so-called Life, and so want her to succeed, so I was all stoked that she was in the film. Nick Stahl, picking up where Edward Furlong left off as John Conner was a pretty decent choice for the role, although he looks far too fit & boyish for a kid who’s been living ‘off the grid’ for so many years. I’ve no idea who played the ‘Terminatrix’, but she was beautiful in that bland way, that worked, she looked fairly appropriately synthetic. And of course, Arnie as the old, obsolete Terminator, was better than he’s been for years in films — mostly because of his funny-terrible one-liners.

Which brings me to a point about the film: With the rise of female action stars, the style of action is changing somewhat. I wonder if there was some concious plan to have this smarter, trickier, deadlier female terminator, like some Gender Studies 101 comment about this fact — you know, art imitating … umm … other art. And see, the old, takes-a-licking-and-keeps-on-ticking style of macho male action star is now obsolete. Geez. I really lost it there.

So anyhoo, there’s a crazily destructive and fun car/truck-chase scene, and some lame humor,and then the best part? There’s no magical happy ending, where they solve everything. The only happy thing is that they’re not dead — they will survive judgement day, there will be a war of the machines, and all that. It’s, as Agent Smith from The Matrixsaid, ‘the sound of inevitability’. I’m a big fan of inevitability in time-travel films.