In its progress from
a surprise hit made on a relatively modest budget back in the 1980s to its
current status as yet another mammoth summer spectacular, The Terminator has undergone the familiar transformation from
innovative and influential work with some genuine intellectual implications to
yet another ho-hum blockbuster. It now seems to have ascended to what insiders
call the “franchise movie,” a constantly reiterated version of some popular
original that grows ever more elaborate and expensive as it diminishes in
freshness and vivacity.
           In the true franchise flick — the Star Wars or Star Trek series, for example, or the James Bond industry — it
becomes increasingly difficult to tell one film from another and, after a
while, nobody cares. With the third picture in the series, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, everybody should therefore know
pretty much what to expect from the characters and situation. Most fans will
probably be pleased that all those expectations are met and that the movie
therefore offers few, if any, surprises.
           To motivate its central action, Terminator 3, like its predecessors,
combines the somewhat outdated anticipation of the apocalypse with the
perennial dread of the machine. Once again, therefore, humanity faces
extinction from its own creation, a missile defense system called Skynet, which
resembles that recurring fantasy of the military-industrial complex familiarly
known as Star Wars. And once again, the self-replicating machines of the future
send back a cyborg to prevent John Connors (Nick Stahl) from fulfilling the
promise of his initials and becoming the savior of mankind.
           Perhaps because of the initially
ingenious use of time travel, the series has entrapped itself in a sort of
loop, so that it must, like Groundhog Day,
endlessly repeat itself. That repetition results in the usual cyborgs popping
into the present like animated champagne corks, so that the good cyborg, our
old friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, will defend John Connors and his girlfriend
(Clare Danes) against the murderous bad cyborg, T-X (Kristanna Loken). The
reiterated pattern of pursuit, narrow escape, and, of course, the rhythmic
clash of the two cyborgs pretty much defines the action and substance of the
picture.
           In the second film of the series,
the interaction between the young John Connor and the good Terminator provided
some of the emotional content and even some humorous moments. The kid
instructed the stolid cyborg in something resembling friendship and even a
sense of humor, and taught him the now famous phrase, “Hasta la vista, baby.”
This time around the script almost entirely ignores the human potential in the
relationship between the now older John Connor and the current Terminator, an
exact replica of the previous two, which means the movie itself mostly lacks
the depth of feeling and the sometimes witty resonance of its immediate
predecessor.
           The diminution of imagination
appears most immediately and strikingly in the first great action sequence, one
of those now obligatory chases that serve to display not only the expected
stunts and pyrotechnics, but also the expenditure of enormous sums of money.
For a generation that regards filmmaking as the employment of expensive special
effects, such exhibits of conspicuous consumption confirm that the movie
constitutes the contemporary notion of first-class entertainment. Since the
chase in question shows a battered little Toyota truck outracing and
outmaneuvering scores of larger, faster vehicles, including motorcycles, sports
cars, police cars, fire trucks, and a Cadillac sedan, the audience will also
recognize that they are in the presence of an entirely meaningless display of action
for its own sake.
           As for the rest of the movie, it
mostly extends and repeats the material of the first two — a few gestures
toward the paradox of time travel, a number of ominous statements about the
impending apocalypse, and a series of violent confrontations between the two
Terminators. Their fights emphasize a latent kinkiness in the series. When the
mighty Arnold and his voluptuous opponent, both attired in tight, shiny leather
outfits, grapple and hug and throw each other around, the film turns into
something like an exercise in soft-core S and M or Wesson oil-wrestling night
at the local topless bar. The script’s other love story, the developing
relationship between Nick Stahl and his future mate, Clare Danes, counts for
almost nothing, since neither actor possesses enough presence to cast a shadow,
and both must necessarily look wan and diminutive next to Arnold and his
luscious counterpart.
           The original Terminator reflected some of the anxieties of its time — a
nervous anticipation of the year 2000, the tensions of the Cold War, the fear
of the senile, bellicose Reagan presidency, the underlying suspicion of an
isolating technology. The new film needs a more exact relevance to a new era,
which features a powerful secret police, a citizenry happily relinquishing its
liberties to a corrupt oligarchy, preemptive warfare on flimsy pretexts against
vulnerable opponents: in short, the triumph of the machine that the earlier
film warned against. As the Terminator says, when comparing his abilities to
those of his new, improved opponent, “I am obsolete.” And indeed he is.
Terminator 3: Rise of the
Machines, starring Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Clare Danes, David Andrews, Kristanna Loken, Mark
Famiglietti, Earl Bowen, Moira Harris; story by John Brancato, Michael Ferris,
and Ted Sarafian; screenplay by John Brancato and Michael Ferris; directed by Jonathan
Mostow. Cinemark Tinseltown; Hoyts Greece Ridge; Loews Webster; Pittsford Plaza
Cinema; Regal Eastview; Regal Henrietta.
You can hear George and his movie reviews on WXXI-FM 91.5
Fridays at 7:20 a.m., rerun on Saturdays at 8:50 a.m.
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2003.
