2003, R, 119 minutes

What is it that people love about the Terminator movies? Is it the storyline centered on stopping a future where machines have overtaken the world, leaving small bands of humans struggling to survive? Is it the spectacular action sequences? Or is it the title character's cold, programmed determination to complete its mission no matter what barriers stand in its way? Well, if any of these things drive your devotion to these films, you are in for a double helping of almost everything that made the first two Terminator films a success.

Terminator 3 picks up ten years after the events of Jim Cameron’s classic Terminator 2. John Connor is now living basically as a drifter, doing his best to leave no identifiable records of himself that Skynet (the computer that is waging war on humans in the future) could trace back to him and use to stop him from becoming the leader of the human resistance. But Skynet has developed a new plan: kill all of Connor’s top generals before they even know what the future has in store for them. And they’ve developed a new Terminator to take care of the objective: the T-X, or Terminatrix.

From the minute that the T-X shows up on screen, the thrills never let up. It is a calculated killer, very reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original Terminator, but with more tricks up its sleeve. It is stronger, faster, and more intelligent than the outdated T-800 model that is sent to protect John Connor. It’s also disguised as a female who is as beautiful as she is deadly.

Conner, suffering from an injury while on the run, breaks into an animal hospital to swipe prescription pills, when he meets clinic employee Kate Brewster (Claire Danes). It turns out these two had a bit of a thing ten years ago, the day before the events of Terminator 2 unfolded, but before that past can be explored too much, the T-X is on the scene to kill Kate.

Kate and John’s escape from the new terminator kicks the movie into high gear, and the action barely stops to let the viewer rest for a moment. The movie’s definite highlight are the spectacular action sequences; from a chase scene involving a huge construction vehicle and a fire engine, to a gun battle in a cemetery, are some of the best scenes ever put into a summer blockbuster.

Unfortunately, it seems most of the thought behind this movie was put into the action sequences. That’s not totally a bad thing, since no one really goes to a Terminator movie for the performances, do they? But it’s rare to see a film where the stunts do more to draw you into the story than the characters. Both Claire Danes and Nick Stahl give fine performances. They don’t really get across all the urgency that the film is trying to convey, but they don’t do the film any harm either.

A possible reason why they fail to really make the audience believe that the world as we know it is coming to an end lies with the performance of Schwarzenegger. It seems that somewhere along the line, Arnie felt that the Terminator (at least the T-800 model) should become a second-rate comedian. From not-so-funny sight gags, to pop culture references that would have been more relevant had they been in T-2 (“talk to the hand?” ugh!), Schwarzenegger’s newest incarnation of the Terminator is a big, menacing killing machine that also just happens to spew out lame one-liners whenever it isn't warning John and Kathy of the eminent nuclear holocaust that is about to overtake the entire planet…ha ha ha, pretty funny stuff. The bad humor seems especially out of place in the third act of the film, when the whole tone of the movie becomes truly dark.

But even Arnold’s bad acting can’t stop this film from being a great summer action picture. Jonathan Mostow, who was chosen based on the strength of his previous effort, U-571, has crafted a slightly sloppier, definitely less stylish Terminator than Cameron’s previous two versions, but the action scenes are truly unique and worth seeing on the big screen.