Arnold Schwarzenegger. The name says it all: big, unwieldy, a bit incongruous, totally
lacking in subtlety, but still somehow memorable and unique. Those elder days when the big
guy was the unquestioned Numero Uno at the Box Office may be a fading memory, but he still


commands a lot of respect and affection from moviegoers.

Or maybe it's just me. Being a sentimental old Awix, as soon as anyone announces their
retirement or a radical change in career, I am suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia, and their


final few appearances always seem to me to have a noble bitter-sweetness to them. This even
applied to S Club 7 and William Hague, so I should probably worry about this tendency
instead of celebrating it in the column, but what the hell: all is grist to my mill.

Anyway, it's pretty much an open secret that Arnie's about to pack in acting and go into
politics, and while it's a bit mind-boggling to contemplate him in a career at least partly
dependent on his public-speaking ability, the citizens of America have shown entirely willing
to 'elect' inarticulate knuckleheads over the last few years. So let's just say 'may God have
mercy on your souls, California' and enjoy what may be his last outing before he launches
himself up the greasy pole: Jonathan Mostow's Terminator 3: Rise of the
Machines.

The standard life-cycle of movie franchises follows a pretty strict pattern - innovation is
replaced by tradition, and tradition by cliche and/or self-parody. The original
Terminator was a virtually perfect B-movie, the most celebrated of a whole series of
punk SF films coming out of LA in the early 80s: clearly cousin to things like
Trancers, Cherry 2000 and Teenage Comet Zombies. Terminator
2 was essentially a bloated and glossy remake, saved by its sheer scale and genuinely
innovative special effects. In turn, Rise of the Machines grinds away what little
energy and raw intensity (not to mention coherence) is left in the concept, in favour of flashy


spectacle and some questionable humour.

Ten years on from Terminator 2, future-saviour of mankind John Connor continues
to live a paranoid, rootless existence in an attempt to prevent evil future-computer Skynet
tracking his movements. His efforts to avoid being spotted even extend to morphing from
Edward Furlong into Nick Stahl. But before you can say, 'Hang on, Judgement Day and the
rise of Skynet were averted in the first sequel', the AI decides to settle for second best and


sends Tamzin Outhwaite back in time to kill those youngsters who will grow up to be Connor's


sidekicks in the resistance. Okay, it's not really Tammy, but it looks awfully like her. It's
actually the nasty new Terminator, TX (Kristanna Loken), equipped with polymimetic skin,
built-in plasma cannon, technokinetic probes and inflatable breasts (I know which impressed
me the most).

So it's just as well that, yet again, Arnie has also come back in time - he must be racking
up those frequent chronic-displacement points (yes, I know he's once again technically a
different character on this occasion). His mission is to protect not only Connor but also
feisty vet Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), who's destined to become Mrs Connor somewhere
down the line. The problem is that Judgement Day is inevitable after all - and the countdown
to it has already begun...

It's probably fair to say that this is a sequel that nobody was really demanding, and
especially not the way it turned out. The list of key personnel from the first two movies not
involved in this one is daunting: no Ed Furlong, Michael Biehn, Robert Patrick, or Brad Fiedel,


and - most crucially - no Linda Hamilton or James Cameron. Virtually the only person apart
from Arnie who does return is Earl Boen, back again as the unlucky Dr Silberman in a
superfluous and played-for-laughs cameo, and the impression that this is a crass, jokey and
unimaginative cash-in recurs throughout the film - a couple of comic scenes with the
various Terminators near the start come particularly close to toppling proceedings over into
lame self-parody.

Terminator 3's problems aren't helped by the way in which the previous film fairly


decisively closed the door on further instalments by supposedly changing the future.
T3's riposte is that, well, Judgement Day is inevitable: it is basically destined to
happen sooner or later, and what's more John Connor is destined to always be the leader of
the survivors, no matter what. (Destiny turns out to be a useful concept, as it excuses all
manner of preposterous coincidences and plot devices.) Quite why it's inevitable is never
explained, it just is, all right? By the end of the film, the supremely elegant time-loop plot of
the original Terminator has been lost in a byzantine tangle of alternate time-lines,
chronoclastic interventions, and unanswered questions. Such as: why does Skynet send the TX
back to virtually the last minute before Judgement Day, thus giving it very little time to
complete its mission? If the idea is that the TX is somehow responsible for the rise of
Skynet, it's not made at all clear here. And, given that the TX isn't actually here to kill
Connor, only finding him by a quirk of fate (see, there's that useful Destiny again for you),
why is Arnie sent back to protect him? And so on. A passing reference to Connor's ultimate
fate goes unresolved, and the general impression is one of desperate obfuscation in order to
make the plot remotely viable. Continuity with the earlier films is really poor, too: for
example, Arnie refers to himself as a T-101 when everybody knows he's actually a T-800, 101


is his model number.

Of course, Terminator 2 was also guilty of sloppy continuity and messed-up time
paradoxes and still managed to be a very good film in its own right. This was mainly due to
James Cameron's marvellously lean and muscular direction, and a terrific, memorable bad guy.


Jonathan Mostow handles the crash-bang-wallop quite well - a colossally destructive
car-chase and an equally rumbustious punch-up between Arnie and Tamzin in some toilets are
especially memorable - but he doesn't quite have Cameron's obsessive focus or intensity, and
some of the action has an overly cartoonish quality (the means by which the plot is resolved is


telegraphed early on, too). And it has to be said that the TX is no great shakes as a villain:
the special effects are actually much less impressive this time around, and Loken plays the
part like a vapid It-girl, gushing silly lines like 'I like your gun'. The look on her face upon
locking onto her primary target resembles that of a hairdresser who's just discovered top
speed on her vibrator. Robert Patrick had twice her menace and presence as the T-1000
(although, to be fair, Loken has a far more impressive set of buttocks, which deserve to be
commemorated in song and story for many years to come), and Loken herself pays tribute to
his performance by copying that karate chop thing Patrick did with his hands when running
around. It's never explained why this new Terminatrix is of the distaff persuasion, either -
and I couldn't help remembering that 'Arnold vs the Bitch' was one of the concepts James
Cameron rejected for Terminator 2, on the grounds of its sheer cheesiness.

So, much of Terminator 3 is poor, but it would be remiss of me to suggest that this
film is a complete waste of time. As I mentioned up the page, many of the action set-pieces
are pretty good, and Nick Stahl and Claire Danes give quite affecting performances as young
people realising they genuinely have no control over their futures. There are some neat
special effects, TX aside. And Arnie- well, Arnie is clearly revelling in his role as the
Terminator, and so he should given how well it suits his particular talents. He can still knock
out the cheesy one-liners when it's required of him and his sheer physical presence is as
potent as it ever was. It's been a long time since he's was so effectively deployed, even if the


scriptwriters insist on giving him dialogue with words like 'nanorobotic constructors' in
it.

And above all else Mostow actually manages to restore some of the dark, raw edginess that


underpinned the original Terminator but was entirely missing from the first sequel.
Okay, he doesn't manage it often or for long without the trappings of megablockbusterdom
swamping him, but it's enough. The opening sequences dourly evoke the grim lifestyle John
Connor has had to adopt, and the vision of a nightmare future that plagues him alone. And the
climax very effectively pulls the rug out from under the audience and confounds their
expectations, a startlingly bold and downbeat move for a commercial action blockbuster to
make. For this alone Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines deserves some credit.

But I think, on the whole, that it's probably best to forget about Terminators 2
and 3, with their satellite whirl of contradictory timelines and continuity mix-ups, and


simply remember the wonderful original - which never really needed a sequel in the first
place. It will quite happily stand alone as a classic of low-budget cinema, and a reminder that
- no matter how questionable his talent might have been - Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in


some damn fine films in his time. Hasta la vista, baby.

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