Home :: DVD :: Science Fiction & Fantasy  

Alien Invasion
Aliens
Animation
Classic Sci-Fi
Comedy
Cult Classics
Fantasy
Futuristic
General
Kids & Family
Monsters & Mutants
Robots & Androids
Sci-Fi Action
Series & Sequels
Space Adventure
Star Trek
Television
Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines (Widescreen Edition)

Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $19.96
Your Price: $14.97
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 .. 40 >>

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What a turkey....
Review: I'd heard this one was bad, but I wanted to see some explosions and and car chases. If that's all you want, this movie is worth seeing, otherwise, forget it. The script stinks, filled with stupid throwbacks to the previous movies and silly situations. The acting stinks (if anything, Arnold's gotten worse since T2, and he's certainly looking older. Do Terminator's really age?). The characters are inane (who really cares about these versions of the characters). The worst thing is that this movies isn't even bad in a good way. Some movies are so bad you can laugh at them. This one, sorry, it's not even funny. Just kinda dull.

The interesting stuff in this series has already been said. Go watch T2 again. Leave this turkey on the shelf where it belongs.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Big Guy Is Back!
Review: Wow, the big guy is really back, at long last. But this bang-em-up sequel to the sequel was well worth the wait. It is not exactly Academy Award winning stuff, but then again, we are talking about the Terminator here. Sometimes it's a bit hard to find the big guy amid all the pyrotechnics, explosions, and spectacular truck crashes, but Arnold is definitely back! One thing I find amusing, however, is that the basic cybernetic model Arnold plays keeps getting slimmer with each film, but since the original version was likely easier to spot as a machine due to its incredible bulk and muscularity, maybe such a revised this model could blend into human company and pass without being detected. So perhaps the machine makers reconfigured its armature as they went along, explaining AHNOLD's progressively slimmer physique in each film.

Anyway, I defy anyone to show me another 55 year old who is this buffed, this muscular, and this awesome! And in the Terminator movies, what really counts here is the combination of special effects and terrific action sequences, which certainly is where the producers have invested most of the effort, energy, and funding. And while I personally was not as impressed with this effort as I was with the superb production values evident in T-2, there is no doubt that this roller coaster ride of an action flick, which includes an eye-popping and heart-pumping sequence with fire trucks racing through the city streets, will enjoy a wide audience and have a lot of success just based on such pyrotechnics. Yet, having said this, in some ways the only continuity with the first two terminator films is the presence of the big guy himself. In this sense it is less a sequel than it is another episode in the Terminator series, and there is a difference.

The story is set ten years after the closing of the second movie, with John Connor (played here by Nick Stahl) now a young adult living on the margins of society to avoid detection, existing without an apartment, a telephone, or credit cards. He finds himself being hunted by the T-X, the most advanced model of the Terminator series, a prototype designed with cutting-edge capabilities including being disguised as a female. The T-X is superbly underplayed by the fetching Kristana Lokken, being programmed as a murder machine that dispatches anyone it comes across en route to its intended prey, the clever young John Connor. Enter our boy AHNOLD, an obsolete T-101 model originally programmed as a hunter-killer, but now sent back to rescue Conner so he can prevent his murder so he can survive to become the adult who somehow keeps sending Arnold back to rescue him. Got it?

AHNOLD must also save the comely young Kate Brewster, an old friend of John's who The T-101 has been programmed to recognize as an older Conner's future main squeeze. Kate is played well by the ever more attractive Claire Danes, who has a terrific future in the film industry, never mind with young John Connor. So the stage is set for yet another protracted series of uneven battles between the mismatched terminator models, with the T-101 attempting to fend off the T-X while keeping the two youngsters alive in the process. As with the previous movies, there are wonderful one-liners, and some gutter humor that we find ourselves laughing along with despite our better natures. I enjoyed the tongue-in -cheek repartee, which is often witty and funny, and this adds a valuable dimension to this film so often missing from other action-fantasy films. All in all, this is a great evening's entertainment. After all, he told us he'd be back! Enjoy!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Non-stop action. Big effects. Not as great as the first 2.
Review: When I first heard about this movie I wondered what in the world they were going to do with the plot. The first one was fresh and has become a touchstone of the popular culture. The second one had so many wonderful and fantastic effects that you can forgive the plot for being a tweaked version of the first (with really cool tweaks). Well, what they did was remove most of the requirement for a plot by making the killing machine absolutely relentless, hopelessly advanced, and who has maybe 100 words in the whole movie. She is just there to chase and kill and then be squashed. Kristanna Loken is effective in this role, but I don't find her as menacing as Robert Patrick was. Her face is so controlled that you never get a sense of power. You SEE the power and she is playing a machine after all, but there you have it.

Arnold reprises his role as a third identical robot (as close as you can be to identical 10 years down the road) and he does it quite well. But he too is given few words. Some of the jokes he gets are pretty good, but a couple of them are groaners.

The stunts are visually very powerful, but the bigger your screen the better they will look. Some of them are so large that the actors almost disappear on a small TV screen.

Nick Stahl is OK as a whacked out John Connor, but he seems to be panting in every scene. Does he have a breathing problem? Clair Danes is the best thing in the movie. She is terrific.

The DVD extras are OK. There is a pretty funny scene where Arnold plays the soldier who was used as the model for the robot soldiers that became the terminators. I don't know if it was made for the movie and taken out or just made as a joke, but it is memorable, but would have drastically altered the tone and pace of the movie as it is. There are out takes, a special on the action figures for adults that is weirdly commercial but interesting at the same time, some stuff on the T3 video game, the HBO show that you have probably already scene and the customary voice over tracks by the director and another with some of the actors.

I enjoyed the movie and realize it isn't as powerful as the first two. For what it tried to be it is very well done. We hoped for more and were a bit disappointed that we weren't blown away. But as I have thought about what is really there, I think it is OK for what it aimed at being.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not Impressed
Review: I have to say that after waiting for many years for the third installment of the Terminator series, that this movie was a big disappointment. The acting was marginal and the characters didn't even seem likable. Claire Danes was very annoying throughout the movie, and I think they could have picked someone better. Arnold did good, but I really didn't care for Terminator X. She was just plain boring. Nothing really stuck out in the movie. I hated how the movie ended only because I felt like nothing was accomplished from the beginning to the end. This one was a big let down.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Tired has-been
Review: Of course he ran for Governor of California, he hasn't had a hit movie since True Lies (over a deacde ago). And of course the lemmings voted him in.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy It !!!
Review: I Saw and Have TERMINATOR and T2, and I also have the DVD's of Both ,Including the First release of the Special Edition ( Actually 2 copies, one unopened in a Metal Case, and the one I use in a Silver Cardboard Pack).
I thoroughly Enjoyed T3.
It's all Set up for a Franchise, and with any Luck Either Arnold, or someone else ( Please God not the "Rock") Will Carry on the Series.

Hopefully the Script and Director for T4 will be better, but... It's a Blast, and the Sergeant Candy scene is full on funny.

No Deep Meaning, just a Standard set of Blow em up, shoot em out fun.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: T3 Shouldn't Be
Review: What a major disappointment. A big time Terminator fan, I couldn't wait to buy this DVD. I even marked the date on my calendar. Now I'm sorry that I purchased it at all. The acting all around is atrocious, the dialogue lame. Storyline is passable with some ( emphasize very few) memorable effects although no where near T2's groundbreaking effects. To think that they had 10 years to develop this property. Maybe it's that Cameron's influence is missing but this is one vehicle where Arnold should never have come back.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great movie!!
Review: I am surprised this movie did not make more money. Not quite as good as T2, but an excellent movie none the less. Great action and I really liked the two new hero characters. Arnold was still good and I liked the human/caring type of machine he portrayed. Lokken, the female bad guy machine was excellent. She had the combination of being scary and very good looking, so I enjoyed when the bad guy was on camera. With so many bad sequels out there, this the third in line was good at keeping the Terminator story alive.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Terminally Lame
Review: This movie has all of the inevitability of Greek tragedy without any of its virtues. It is a stupid cynical manipulative affair with plot machinery so clumsy that one can see it clanking away in every scene.

It starts with a by now formulaic introduction, segues into a by now formulaic car chase, is leavened with by now formulaic wisecracks, uttered by now formulaic characters. If you never thought a car chase could be tedious, you have only to sit through fifteen long minutes of this one: the first of three. The filmmakers asked themselves how they could outdo the car chases in the previous film and settled on sheer mass. Since Arnie had already defeated full sized semi-trailers filled with gasoline and liquid nitrogen, this time, there was nowhere to go but a mobile crane. As this series grinds its way into puerile sequeldom, expect logging trucks, cement mixers and wide load transports. It never once occurred to the cretins responsible for this movie that they might, just might, do away with the car chases altogether and build excitement on, say, intrigue or suspense. Naw--that would involve actual INVENTION and CREATIVITY, and why go to such trouble when the consuming public can be cynically manipulated into spending their hard earned cash on recycled toxic waste?

The plot for this turkey is lifted wholesale from the last movie, but differs just enough to extinguish all hope. It holds out no message of vision or redemption. Nothing will stave off the coming Armageddon. Free will is futile, the struggle to shape our future is pointless and our aspirations are of utterly no consequence. Yummy.

This movie is nothing but a two-hour trailer for its too predictable sequel. Its intent is not to entertain so much as to extend a franchise. Consequently, it doesn't even pretend to care enough for its characters to give them interesting personalities or good dialogue, and it treats its alternate world as nothing more than a backdrop on which to flaunt mayhem and special effects. This movie distracts us with diversionary tactics, then picks our pockets clean with the skill of a pro. 'Cynical' doesn't begin to do it justice. It is crassly manipulative, remorselessly bleak and unforgivably stupid. Watch it at the risk of your self-respect.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Biggest disappointment ever!!!
Review: If I could give this movie a lower rating I'd do it, it deserves more of a 0.16 of a star. This movie was horrible, not a good ending at all, the casting was fair, but not great. The graphics were so-so, but not as good as I expected & hoped. This movie by far (besides Gigli) has to be the biggest disappointment. I wish it would've flopped in the box office, but like idiots we go see it & leave in shock of the suckiness that took place. When the movie ended you were like "that's it, that sucked." I don't care if you vote that this review wasn't helpful, you know it was, because deep down inside (if you saw the movie) that it sucked terribly, admit it, & vote that I was helpful...horrible movie, one of the worst...


<< 1 .. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 .. 40 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates