Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

PROS:

+ mostly solid special effects
+ great practical effects
+ some great action sequences (the crane chase being the highlight)
+ solid acting from the two human leads (Not sure if it's just natural or what but there's definitely a resemblance to Edward Furlong's version of John Connor, just evolved a bit more and matured in a way. What I found even cooler was the heavy resemblance to Kyle Reese from Terminator 1 that came through)

CONS:

- the last act, while the final reveal/twist was cool, never really manages to be that entertaining, especially action wise, it never matches any of the action sequences seen in the previous act which makes it go out with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang
- the script has some cool ideas, but a lot of them seem half baked especially the new Terminator the T-X, I didn't feel they did enough with her as the next evolution of the Terminator (like the leap from the T1 terminator to the T2 terminator) the leap just wasn't really there, it more seemed like a slightly improved T2 terminator rather than the natural next evolution/leap like we saw from the first to the second

OVERALL:

it's an above average movie and by no means a bad one, but doesn't manage to reach the level of any of the other 3 current Terminator movies in terms of solidity, concept and execution. As stated a lot of the ideas feel cut short or half baked and unfortunately that leads to some disappointment. When I first saw this movie I liked it and would have scored it higher (7) than I am now, but unfortunately upon repeat viewings the flaws become more evident. Still, it's a solid action movie with some above average set pieces, but in the end the only real reason to see it and the only real reason for it to exist is to connect T2 to the future-time trilogy and effectively complete the present-time trilogy, even if it wasn't done as well as it could have been - it gets the job done.