REVIEW BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken, Claire Danes, David Andrews and Mark Famiglietti
Directed by Jonathan Mostow
At major cinemas
To great fanfare, the third instalment of the movie that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name was released in July. Coincidentally (or not), the release accompanied the launch of Arnie's bid to follow in that other right-wing Hollywood star's footsteps (Ronald Reagan) as governor of California.
Launched in the midst of Washington's "war on terror", devotees of Terminator, and its first sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day, may have hoped for some hint of criticism of the US President George Bush and his gang's rush to invade or bomb any country that fails to see things eye-to-eye with them. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Terminator 3 picks up nine years after the terminators were destroyed (at the end of T2) and the creation of the megalo-machine Skynet was apparently prevented. All the old favourite characters are there — John Connor and terminator Arnie. Of course, there is the "newest" version of the terminator robot, which has yet again been sent back through time to kill Connor to prevent him from fulfilling his destiny as leader of humanity against the all-powerful machines. All pretty standard stuff.
The main difference between T3 and the first two films is not hard to find. In T3, we are confronted with images of a future Connor astride a pile of rubble next to a US flag, rallying the troops. As the film develops, so does the fatalism of its main characters.
Where Terminator and T2 were epics of the struggle against war and self-annihilation, T3 argues that these things are inevitable. And far from fighting against them, we should rather learn to live with it.
Sure, the movie has some plot, and is full of corny self-reference to the earlier pics. The stunts are outlandish, and the special effects are exciting.
But behind the superficial glitz, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is just another thinly veiled Hollywood makeover for the US military-industrial complex.
Little wonder that Arnie launched his election campaign — or was it the film? — with a flight to greet US troops in Iraq.
From Green Left Weekly, August 27, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.