Blu-ray Review: Terminator 3
Even now it seems almost impossible for me to comprehend that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Governor of California. It’s like saying that Jason Statham will one day be the Prime Minister of England. Actually I for one would be totally fine with such a thing.
But turning to the movie in hand, Terminator 3 has already been released elsewhere on Blu-ray (as well as HD DVD for that matter) by Warner Brothers. But now we are seeing it released here in the UK by Sony Pictures on the back of the fourth instalment (Terminator Salvation). It has also been given the proper makeover treatment this time around, with HD audio and a decent encode. But more on that later.
The movie finds John Connor (Nick Stohl) now drifting from place to place finding work where he can, but generally staying off the grid. But the man who once was Edward Furlong soon ends up in trouble, crashing his motorcycle and finding pain medication at the local vets. Here he runs into Catherine Brewster (Claire Danes) a former high school friend who becomes involved with her one time crush when the vets gets…crushed by a leather clad (ahem) TerminatriX (Kristianna Loken) who has been sent back from the future to kill John and several other targets who would become his Resistance leaders.
Yes Judgment Day wasn’t stopped at the end of T2, merely put on hold. But fortunately Arnie is back, reprogrammed to protect John and Kate.
What this does of course lead to is a whole heap of sci-fi action, massive explosions, iffy dialogue and an excuse to hear the box office tills ring once more (although not to the degree that was expected).
Bringing Terminator 3 to the screen in many ways is a thankless task for director Jonathan Mostow. James Cameron passed on making a third movie, which if we are brutally honest, didn’t really need to be made in the first place.
So we can accept it as a given that T3 would never, ever come to close to the classics that proceeded it. But what we have here is something of an aboration in the movie industry, T3 is effectively the most expensive indie flick ever produced and because it was self financed to the tune of $200 million it is missing many of the things I find so annoying about modern action flicks.
There is essentially no product placement in this movie, which is always one of my major bugbears these days. There are items used such as Nokia phones, but they never ever give you a gratuitous close up of the logo or brand name.
The action is also extremely well put together; it doesn’t give you motion sickness by jump cutting every second (or even less than one) for a start. There is no shaky cam, no handheld nonsense, just decent filmmaking. I know I run the risk of finally filling in my membership form for the old farts club here, but I’m not the only one who finds the modern MTV filmmaking style to be particularly irritating.
And the action itself is good, really good in fact. The crane truck chase as Arnie, Kate and John escape from the T-X is a fantastic sequence. Visual effects are all incredibly strong, especially for a six year old movie.
It may not be Cameron-sized insanity but throughout the 109 minute runtime there is plenty of action, and you are never left waiting impatiently for the next round of explosions to start.
T3 also ends on something of a downer, perhaps only to continue the series of movies but given that we have had to wait six years for another (starring every director of photography’s favourite Christian Bale) and one minus The Governor too things obviously didn’t quite work out the way the producers had planned. Indeed T3 was Jonathan Mostow’s last directorial gig.
Ultimately Terminator 3 is a slight oddity. Schwarzenegger was still in shape and manages to pull off playing The Terminator one last time, but manages to make the performance rather cringe worthy in many places. The massive payday and box office percentage he was paid helped I’m sure.
Kristianna Loken does a decent job as the T-X, and her face offs with Arnie make for a good fight, Claire Danes does a good turn as Kate Brewster and even Stohl is ok is nothing special as John Connor.
I know many people dislike Terminator 3, and claim it ruined the franchise and assorted other overblown internet forum posts to repeat until the credits. But I enjoyed it for what it is, a sci-fi action movie with a big budget and a lot of action. Which reminds me that I really must go and see the new Star Trek movie.
Audio Visual
SPHE presented T3 with its usual 1080p MPEG4 encode, and it looks far nicer than other catalogue titles I have watched over the last couple of years.
HD transfers of older movies can make special effects work stand out as looking a little more fake (the Blu-ray version of I, Robot in particular comes to mind), but not so here.
Colours are ever so slightly muted, so the image doesn’t pop and shine like a new release would (but once again this isn’t a new movie) but that doesn’t mean T3 isn’t a looker.
There is a very slight grain to the image which doesn’t detract from some obvious tweaking of the visuals in places such as the crane car sequence (filmed during the day, but its supposed to be around dawn). Night shots look pristine, black levels great and metallic surfaces look suitably shiny. And metallic. What I’m saying is T3 looks very nice on this Blu-ray, and is a great enhancement over the DVD.
Sony can sometimes turn out some slightly underwhelming Dolby TrueHD soundtracks on its discs, but not so here. This one is an absolute belter. Explosions are extremely punchy, giving the subwoofer a real workout. It’s not quite window rattling, filling troublingly deep as with a new movie like The Day The Earth Stood Still, but it’s certainly a vast improvement over the Dolby Digital DVD track, and the DD+ that was on the HD DVD.
What really impressed me the most was the surround speakers are always doing something. Even in exposition scenes where there is a lot of talking such as the RV trip across the desert, wind can be heard whistling around from all directions. In fact if anything there is a little too much going on,perhaps the environmental audio could have been tweaked a little lower in the mix.
But when the bullets start flying, and stuff starts blowing up, this track is right up there with the best of them. Fantastic stuff.
Bonus Features
As is often the case with these older catalogue titles, the bonus features from the T3 DVD have been ported over and kept in their original SD form. There are a few featurettes which are largely just fluff material (although I did enjoy the Macfarlane toys one), a documentary that is pushing the limits of what you could call a documentary given its 13 minute runtime), a gag reel, theatrical trailer and a single deleted scene.
There are also two commentaries (there were three on the previous US BD release), one very fun one with Mostow and his three leads which is a great group recording. The second is a solo track from Mostow which is a bit dryer but that is the nature of the solo commentary.
When the movie was originally released on HD DVD, it featured one of Warner’s first “In-Movie Experiences”, or to give it a better name, a picture-in-picture track. At that time the Blu-ray format was still playing catch up with these advanced features, but now the Profile 2.0/BD Live specification is with us and the feature has been ported over for this Blu-ray.
It’s a great track as well, throughout the movie video windows pop up with chat primarily from director Mostow, but the actors also appear on cue when required to fill in the blanks. There is also a ton of on set and behind the scenes footage that isn’t included in the other featurettes. So this track is a must watch for Terminator fans.
The disc also features the new Cine-Chat feature, where you can watch the movie and chat online with other folks doing the same thing. Once again, to me this seems rather pointless.
Summing Up
While purists may not like it, I enjoyed T3 for what it is – big, dumb fun. It’s a very competent sci-fi action movie that looks and sounds great and has a decent set of extras. Is it a worthwhile upgrade from the DVD? Absolutely, the transfer is very good, the sound is superb, and while the extras have been seen before, it is worth it for the picture-in-picture track.
It may have been released more times that a serial offender, but this version of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the latest and greatest. Well worth a look.
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