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July 3- 9, 2003 movies Déjà Vu
Terminator 3 shows us the same old future, with a few twists. The Terminator franchise is a brawny business. It doesn’t shape-shift with each incarnation, like, say, the Alien films. Rather, the pictures repeat themselves by definition; they’re about time loops and fate, after all. John Brancato and Michael Ferris’ T3 screenplay mostly amplifies what’s been done already: more explosions, more car crashes, more burning and shredding of the now wholly outdated T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose 55-year-old body remains its own grand effect) and more penetrations of and by the slippery silver Terminator, here, the T-X (Kristanna Loken). In these stunty moments, it’s loud and aggressive, a battering ram of a movie. And yet, while Jonathan Mostow’s film is mostly earnest and respectful of James Cameron’s glory days, it shows a subtle range of tone, from clever to darkly funny to downright apocalyptic.
Like his mother before him, a harried 22-year-old John Conner (Nick Stahl) resists his fate. At film's start, he's a loner junkie, racing around on his motorcycle in an attempt to live "off the grid" (no fixed address), even though he wants to believe that he and his mother, now dead from leukemia and remembered fondly, stopped Skynet's decimation ("judgment day"). This despite his repetition of his mom's mantra that "the future has not been written." Once again, T3 explores the tension between destiny and free will (which produces much action), and the T-X is as grim a reaper as you might imagine. Still, while the film makes apposite use of Stan Winston's gory-face makeup and the still excellent evil-Terminator liquid metal effects (CGI-ers for X2 and Hulk take note), the film also brings appropriate jokes to its destructive and deconstructive moments. The humanist plot involves John's relationship with his former high-school classmate, Kate (Claire Danes). Presently working for a veterinarian, Kate is reluctant to be a next-generation "mother of the future." Once her fiance (Mark Famiglietti) is splattered all over their bedroom, however, she comes around to the idea that her future lies with John and the T-101. Such heartfelt relationship stuff is, as always, only a means to get to the machines. Somewhere between thrilling and overkilling, the film deftly cuts between scenes showing their progress and demolition. The T-X first shows up inside a Beverly Hills boutique window, which means that she copies a mannequin's form -- lithe with a perfectly glassy face. Much updated, she uses a cell phone directory to acquire her targets, and slams into action with an unnerving iciness. "I like your gun," she purrs to a cop who pulls her over for speeding. Enough of that scene: The film leaps to Arnold entering a bar where it's ladies' night. He zeroes in on the leather-clad gay dancer and demands his clothing. "Talk to the hand!" hisses the dancer. The Big T obliges, with some crushing of bones: "Now." And that's enough of that scene. Arnold emerges in the dancer's gear, complete with Bootsy Collins star-shaped sunglasses. As this moment suggests, the film loves itself too much. But it also understands why. (c_fuchs@citypaper.net)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Directed by Jonathan Mostow A Warner Bros. release Now playing at area theaters 
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