So yesterday I watched Under Siege 2 and today I watched Terminator 3 for the first time since I saw it in theaters when it was first released. I remember being hugely disappointed when I first saw it, but I noticed that I enjoyed it much more the second time around. It’s better than I thought the first time I saw it, but it should be noted that there is no arguing with the fact that, even though it does a good job of furthering the Terminator story, director Jonathan Mostow is just not taking his work seriously which has the unfortunate effect of turning the entire movie into a joke.

That becomes clear almost immediately, as the Terminator walks into a bar during ladies night and has a run-in with a gay dancer, ultimately walking out of the bar clad in leather and putting on a purple pair of glittery star-shaped sunglasses. The entire movie became one of those rare theater experiences where everyone is laughing out loud and making jokes about the movie but nonetheless enjoying it, and no one seems to mind all the talking and giggling.

It’s immediately clear that Arnold Schwarzenegger is just not the same guy he was only ten years earlier. For some reason, he seems a lot more than ten years older here than he was in Judgement Day, and to make matters worse, his English seems to have slipped. His accent is much stronger now than it was before and it affects his performance. It’s hard not to laugh out loud when he approaches Claire Dames and says, “Catherine Broo-stuh?”

Must override "don't hit a girl" directive!

In the movie’s defense, I loved the addition that it made to the Terminator story. We are given believable reasons for why there are still terminators even after the only chips were destroyed at the end of T2, and the “rise of the machines” is also well presented.

But the biggest problem with the movie is the casting. Claire Dames is good in her role of Catherine Brewster, a key element of the humans resistance against the machines, although she is just a little too recognizable. But Nick Stahl? Are you serious? From the very beginning of the movie, where he is shown as an older man in the future, Stahl is wildly miscast as John Connor.

Why didn’t they just cast Eddie Furlong again? He’s not the same kid he was back in 1992, but I can’t imagine anyone else fitting the character as well. And surely he wasn’t too busy, unless he was more interested in acting in the disappointing and instantly forgettable crime thriller 3 Blind Mice than making another Terminator film. Such a thing hardly seems possible. And the outrageously bad Jimmy and Judy was still three years in the future, so he had still yet to totally destroy his image of youth and innocence (and respectability).

"Come with me if you want to...wait a minute, what am I doing??"

The other problem is that Kristanna Loken, who is undeniably beautiful, just doesn’t understand the nature of her character, nor does director Jonathan Mostow. In the original film, Reese explained to Sarah Connor that the first Terminators had latex skin and were easy to spot, but the new ones had real organic tissue and looked exactly like normal humans. Now we get an distantly more advanced Terminator who makes every effort not to act human. Every time the Terminatrix is on screen, it’s hard not to picture Mostow just off-camera saying, “Do it again, and this time, try to act more like a machine!”

Wasn’t the whole point of the newer and better Terminators to look and act more like humans and not like machines? At any rate, it just comes off as over-acting here.

But still, like the new Indiana Jones movie, the entertainment level is high, and there are certainly some good moments, like the Terminator telling John, “Desire is irrelevant. I am a machine!”

I have a feeling that part 3 is going to be a low point in the series, and I’m not sure when it will end. I’m thrilled to know that Christian Bale will take on the role of John Connor in Terminator: Salvation, despite the recent news of how he had a little temper tantrum on set. Still, it looks like the series is heading in exciting new directions…

2.5 Beans out of 5.