movie review - Terminator 3
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Before I get into the movie itself, I want to talk about where I saw it. I went with a friend to Market Square in Toronto, which is an unassuming cinema in the St. Lawrence district. It was once part of the Cineplex Odeon chain, and has half a dozen small cinemas. But it has recently re-opened under new ownership, and it's worth a look.
For one thing, the ticket price even for first-run releases is $5.50! For another, there's somone from the staff playing on a grand piano in the lobby to listen to while in line (and yes, people are lining up for this place after all those dismal years under Odeon). Anyway, I was pleased with it. I wish the new owners well.
Now for the movie: if you've seen the trailers - or either of the first two installments in the trilogy - you've already seen the movie. With two humourous cameos by survivors of the second movie, some predictable lines, and a hell of a lot of destruction, the thing delivers a lot of what you'd expect.
What I didn't expect, though, was some of the matter dealing with how the end of the world comes about despite all of the efforts of the second film.
While Linda Hamilton's Sara Connor has died before the outset of this one (of Luekemia!), our man John Connor has matured -- no, aged -- into a penniless drifter living 'off the grid'. In the opening scenes, he blunders into a chance meeting with a girl he'd supposedly known when the second film got going. From there, the sense of inevitability continues. And yet the plot doesn't really shake itself out until the final frames. And the (rather imbecilic) 'bad terminator' from the future isn't even central to that finale. All she man aged to do was to wipe out half of her list of minor players in the human war against the machines. I was rather pleased with the outcome, actually.
It's worth a watch. Amazingly, Schwarzenegger is still huge at 50+. Also surprising is that his acting is by now means the most stiff and pointless in this one. He's clearly having fun.
Recommended.