terminator 3
rise of the machines

The chase with Danes locked in the back of the van was fantastic. Around the time of Arnie's first encounter with the fembot up until the Sky Lab scenes I was completely entertained by Terminator 3. There was some nostalgia reminiscent of the golden action years. The movie was entertaining throughout, but the middle section was exceptional.

One rant I must bellow forth concerns the feminisation of the action movie. Talk about oestrogen pollution! For example, I disliked the way that John Connor is portrayed as a sensitive wimp. The scene where he was defeated in combat by Claire Danes was dire. Stop feeding me that woman-has-to-be-as-tough-as-the-blokes bullshit! The time-honoured plot where the guy saves the damsel in distress is classic; the plot where the girl saves the guy is lame: sorry, but that's just the way it is, that is our biological instinct. Take the scene in which Claire Danes saves John Connor by grabs an automatic and hoses down some malevolent droid. I did not get the impression that there was much kickback, or that Danes was acting realistically: everything about that scene was dubious. When she protests, "What", I thought, exactly! It was that implausible.

More forgivably, the same theme recurred with the Terminatrix getting medieval on Arnie's metal ass. Sigh, I'm sure I'm not alone in that I want fantasy-action heroes to be *real men*, not fodder to any chick that comes along. I'm all for smart women in movies, indeed, in disclaimer mode, I truly believe that women are at least as smart as men in most areas, generally speaking, and in some areas, such as empathy, they are smarter. But women are not as physical. All this political correctness is fucking up action movies: a real action movie cannot be politically correct by its very nature and soul. The point is that action movies are constructs of male, anti-politically correct fantasy, just as modern romantic comedies are politically correct, female fantasy - or at least some warped approximation to it.

When it seemed that Arnie would become the bad guy again, the surge of electrifying suspense was jolting. I thought, O Christ, those snotty kids are in for it now! By Zeus, the prospect of seeing a killer Arnie again was mouth-watering. Arnie plus Fembot team up against the kids: now that would have made a stunning finale! Distressfully, that brilliant plot twist was resolved in the most anticlimactic way imaginable. Arnie rebooted himself? What the...? Oh well, maybe in the next one. And what was that stupid bullshit about exploding batteries? I must admit though, the exploding battery mushroom cloud behind the van was an amusing shot.

The best comedy in T3 (apart from the expanding boobs scene) was when Arnie says something along the lines of, “It's good to see you so cheerful, it helps to take away the fear of death.” Not far behind was the reprise scene featuring the psychologist, in, shall we say, terminal denial. (Recent research, incidentally, has shown that counseling people after a disaster can do more harm than good, and the whole practice urgently needs review).

A perverse pleasure to be gleaned from Terminator 3 is watching Danes valiantly having to act her way though the traumas that would have reduced any mortal to a messy nervous breakdown. Put yourself in her (sensible) shoes: it is 5am, you have a burglar, and engage in combat with him. A remarkably conveniently-appearing customer is shot dead, and the murderess hunts you. You are attacked by said Murderess. Arnie drives a huge truck at you, bouncing it over your body. Your veterinary practice is reduced to rubble. You are kidnapped by the burglar.

You are put through hell in a supernaturally bumpy speed chase. You are physically and verbally knocked about by Arnie. You listen to some daft speech about destiny by Connor. There is a horrible experience at a cemetery. You see your fiance. He morphs before your very eyes into the fembot, who then tries to kill you, again. (You know what will happen because the trailer spoiled the scene). You are rescued and told by an indifferent Arnie that your fiance. is dead! You are told that there is going to be a nuclear war, and it will happen in a few hours and that your beloved dad will die. Surely enough, your dad dutifully dies in your arms. You narrowly cheat death a few more times. You escape, and in a bunker you listen to the despairing voices of the doomed over an intercom system. You know that most, if not all of, your family, close friends and billions of people are going to die horribly and that the Earth will be fried to a cinder. And it was all your dad's fault. You know that your future husband will die before too many years have passed, and that you will spend the rest of your miserable life fighting terminators in some horrible, charred hell.

Claire went though all that, and she still managed to look pretty and stoical.