The action was excellent. The movie starts off at a fast pace and like a locomotive never slows down. The middle chase scene features a crane-truck and a fire truck chasing a tiny pickup. The distruction is impressive.
The fight scenes between the T-X and T-101 are really good. You also get to see Arnold beat up on some T-1’s. T stands for Terminator. Arnold is a T-101. T-X is the new baddie, girl Terminatrix.
The actor that they got to play John Conner is convincing. It’s a shame that the previous actor could not pull his live together long enough to reprise his role. Linda Hamilton is not in this movie but her presence is felt. Claire Danes is new to the case. We have not seen her in much in a while. As John Conner points out in the movie, she reminds us of Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton).
There are several views of the future like we saw in the first two movies. It is hard to tell if they used the same footage from T2. It looks like they remastered the scenes and expanded them with some new elements.
This is a true sequel. You need to see the first two movies to fully appreciate the course of events, the character references, and the irony of the ending. Rent them first.
The absence of James Cameron can be felt in the character development and dialog. The movie is full of one-liners and homages to the first movies. In another way, it differs from the first two movies is that the plot is different. When you think of the first two movies (or if you’re like me and watch them back-to-back), you realize that they have the same plot and sequence of events.
From a computer geek point of view there was a real potential to have some really bad Hollywood computer logic but this is overted successfully. This movie has some good plot turns and a good resolution at the end. There will be no T-4.