Terminator 3, Blu Ray Review

Terminator 3 continues the story of John Connor and his battle against the time travelling machines and against his destiny. It’s also a bit of a divergence for the franchise in a couple of ways. Firstly the director, Jonathan Mostow has the unenviable task of stepping into James Cameron’s shoes. Secondly we have a female terminator, thirdly it’s the first terminator film not to feature Sarah Connor and fourthly it’s not trying to be a film by itself, but is trying to set the scene for the battle against skynet in the future.

Time has moved on. John Connor is now in his early 20s. The date that his father said was judgement day has come and gone, but still he’s not at ease. It turns out that judgement day hasn’t been stopped by the antics of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, only postponed. Terminators still exist in the future and so does time travel. This time a female terminator, dubbed the T-X (terminatrix), has been sent back in time. Her mission is to ideally kill John Connor. Since he’s dropped off the electronic grid and can’t be found, the T-X has secondary targets, John Connor’s lieutenants in the future. As in the second film a T-800 terminator is sent back in time as protector for John. Arnold is back!

After a minor motorcycle accident John is looking for medication but doesn’t want to go to a hospital where ID will be required. In the middle of the night he breaks into a veterinary practice and manages to patch himself up. Coincidentally this is the practice that Kate Brewster works at. Kate and John went to school together before the events of Terminator 2 took place. Kate is also on the list of the T-X’s secondary targets as she’s John’s future second in command (and wife).

When Kate is called in for a late night cat emergency, she finds and captures John. Before she has the chance to alert the authorities she hears a crash and a gunshot, the T-X has arrived. Whilst trying to kill Kate the T-X finds, and identifies John Connor’s blood (seems the new models have DNA analysers built into their tongues). Her primary target now found, her mission is now to kill John. Just in the nick of time the T-800 arrives to save John and Kate and they go on the run. Can they evade or eventually kill the T-X? Can they postpone judgement day yet again? These are the key questions in T-3.

In terms of the cast Arnold reprises his iconic portrayal of a killer robot from the future. I read somewhere that he undertook a punishing fitness regime to get back in the kind of shape he was in back in the day and it certainly worked. Edward Furlong is replaced by Nick Stahl as John Connor, Claire Danes plays Kate Brewster and Kristanna Loken plays the T-X. There’s no room for Linda Hamilton here, they’ve killed her off in between movies.

The story has moved on in time, but not really in terms of formula. Two beings come back from the future. One to kill, the other to protect. Initially it’s a race to acquire the target, then a chase film from then on in whilst the main characters try to find a way to kill the seemingly invincible terminator. In those respects this film doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, it’s pretty much by the book and we’ve seen it all before. I’m aware that a lot of people didn’t really like the 3rd Terminator film. In my own opinion, if you consider it as an action film then it’s a damn good one. If you look at it as part of the franchise then it’s definitely the weakest of the three. Whilst Kristanna Loken does a good job as the T-X, she’s just not as menacing as either Arnold in the first film, or Robert Patrick in the second and other than that it follows the formula of the first two too much.

It’s not until the last act that it starts to digress from that formula and get a bit interesting and for me it makes the whole film worthwhile. It sets the franchise up for the next couple of films about the battle against the machines in the future, one that John Connor is destined to lead. That’s the film I’ve wanted to see since I first saw the flashback sequences from the first film. The ending of this film raises some mouth watering possibilities.

The Blu Ray release of Terminator 3 is a great advert for the format. Both picture and sound are up there with other reference disks. If you want to showcase your setup this could well be among the disks you put on to show off to your mates. Picture is very clear and crisp. The picture is a very good 1080p 2.40:1 widescreen presentation. Colours are great, as is detail and contrast. For the audio we have a Dolby TrueHD track that is better than anything the release has had before. Now this is the type of film that will benefit from a full surround sound system and if you have an HD surround sound system you’re in for a real treat.

The extras have all made it across from the HD DVD release a few years ago, which is nice. We get a very nice picture-in-picture commentary with the director with a few of the stars popping up now and then. Personally I’m not a huge fan of commentaries, but having it as picture-in-picture really worked for me, as well as hearing the extra material you can see some behind the scenes footage at the same time. As well as this pip commentary you also get three other non-visual commentaries, a documentary, and a couple of other smaller features that look at the terminator outfits, toys and video game. There’s also one deleted scene and a pretty out of place blooper reel.

If you’re a fan of the Terminator franchise then this is the best the film has looked and sounded. Yes, it’s not quite as good as its predecessors, but it’s still a damn good action film with some great action sequences. The best thing the film does though is set the franchise up for the next film, and that’s the film that fans, and myself, have been awaiting for a very long time.

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