Is there no limit to the mindless incredulity of modern movie audiences? That seemed to be the question on the minds of many movie critics on Wednesday when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opened in US cinemas with high hopes of becoming the biggest hit of the summer.
Across the country movie reviewers lined up to give the movie the kind of verbal drubbing that the Terminator would love to hand out to the enemies he must vanquish to save the human race. ”Loud and dumb”, ”formulaic schlock”, ”stale, cheesy sequel”, were some of the terms that greeted the reincarnation of the sci-fi spectacular.
Featuring the 55-year-old action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, even in his younger days, had the kind of acting talent you would expect from a body-building champion with a poor command of English, the movie is the third installment of a cinematic tale that began in 1984 and had its sequel when President Bush’s father was still in the White House.
Now, to paraphrase the words uttered by humanoid robot played by Schwarzenegger, the movie is back. But though it may have Schwarzenegger in a reprise of the robotic role that propelled him to stardom, it is missing an even more important element of the previous success: director James Cameron’s ability to find a human angle during the perpetual pyrotechnics.
So while Arnie still delivers his lines with the deadpan monotony that would be the death of other actors, has an aging body bizarrely restored to the dimensions of its youth, and cavorts in crash sequences that feature huge cranes and fire trucks, the package just doesn’t seem to work third time around, most critics agreed.
”The splendid joke of the first two Terminator pictures was that Arnold Schwarzenegger — with his Eastern European monotone and cloddish physicality — had found the role of his lifetime, playing a machine,” wrote critic Christopher Kelly in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
”But in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Schwarzenegger no longer even looks human — and the joke, accordingly, has turned slightly depressing.”
So appalled was Kelly with the movie that he’s even considering moving to California if Schwarzenegger runs for governor. He wants to support the actor’s political career so that he never makes movies again.
With Democratic Governor Grey Davis reeling from an acute financial crisis and Schwarzenegger saying that he will run ”if the Republican Party wants me”, that scenario is looking more likely than ever — to the dismay of liberal Californians.
”T3 is best seen as a $175-million campaign ad for Schwarzenegger’s bid to be California’s next governor. Tough, buff Arnold helps kids, keeps bad machines from despoiling the environment and saves the state, all without spending the taxpayers’ money,” wrote Time Magazine movie critic Richard Corliss.
His explanation for the movie’s box office success: ”Pop culture knows that people love nothing more than imagining their own demise.”
The New York Times’s AO Scott was even more damning. He warns audiences that the never ending cycle of chases and fights that form the bulk of the movie will threaten their auditory systems with permanent damage.
Schwarzenegger, he said, is guilty of the worst crime ageing movie stars and sports heroes can commit: not knowing and accepting that they are way past their prime. ”The entire performance smacks of that brand of desperation unique to aging narcissists, the ones willing to humiliate themselves in a bid to reclaim past glory,” he said.
There were some bright points in a mostly dismal rack of reviews. Some critics praised T3’s lack of pretension compared to the pseudo-philosophical hokum of the summer’s other great blockbuster sequel The Matrix: Reloaded.
The San Diego Tribune called the movie ”awful, terminal but satisfying”, while The Miami Herald praised it for being funnier, and shorter, than the other two. With Arnie battling a shapely fembot played by Kristanna Loken, the paper also lauded the movie’s designers for hoarding copies of Playboy.
”Arnie’s fans get what they want,” the paper concluded. Then it added ominously that director Jonathan Mostow ”leaves the door wide open for a fourth Terminator, and, surprisingly, Rise of the Machines doesn’t make that seem like such a bad idea”. – Sapa-DPA