Spud1000

It's only natural for a franchise to progress in stile as it goes on. You had the original Terminator, which was a sort of sci-fi horror. Then there was Terminator 2, a thought-provoking actioner. And now we have Terminator 3, a teen-orientated, cartoon violence, no-brain popcorn muncher. It seems we have a Terminator for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer generation. Think 'Robocop: the Series' and you might get some idea.

Fans of the first two films, like myself, will be mortified. So stay well away. However, ignoring the film's heritage, it still isn't even that good on its own. As a special effects heavy action film, it scores a generous below average. As anything else, it's a non-event. It has bad acting, a bad script, bad direction, even bad editing. It is, to sum up, cack.

The only vaguely impressive performance is by Danes. Stahl is distinctly mediocre and Schwarzenegger doesn't appear to be even trying. And someone should have pointed out to Loken that the reason Schwarzenegger and Patrick were so intimidating in the previous films was because they deadpanned while they were busy killing people. She needed to show less emotion and definitely quit the pouting.

OK, it has its moments. The chase scene and the fight in the toilets are impressive, but will have you laughing out loud rather than on the edge of your seat. The action is more reminiscent of Tom and Jerry than anything else. As such, you can't take then ending seriously, not matter how hard it tries.

Oh yeah, and they use the 'f' word twice in a 12a-rated film. Ooh, how rebellious.

It'd be very easy to dismiss this film as yet another in the current slew of Marvel cash-ins, which was already starting to get tedious with the release of Daredevil. But this film, thankfully, has something more to offer. Ang Lee has made that extra effort to go beyond having a film based on a comic book to blurring the line between the two. And a damn fine job he did too. It wasn't perfect, as the use of panels within the film got a bit annoying after a while, but no-one can deny it was inventive. You actually feel that you are in the comic book rather than a film and all of a sudden, suspending your disbelief becomes that much easier. All the comic book cliches and the fact that you have a big green CGI character somehow seem natural and you start enjoying yourself that much more. The cartoon violence deserves a special mention. Thankfully, the filmmakers didn't succum to overplaying it. As an example. in one part, they could have had the Hulk taking on an entire armoured devision at once but instead, they just have him tearing apart four tanks. The brutal simplicity of it had me jumping out of my seat. Top stuff. There's an attempt to inject a little bit of depth and it isn't completely wasted, thanks mainly to Jennifer Connelly's sterling performance. Although it has to be said the whole father sub-plot just gets annoying after a while. To sum up, this is a hugely enjoyable film, despite the fact that the ending doesn't maintain the momentum generated earlier. However, it is aimed squarely at the comic book crowd and most people outside this probably need not apply. Everyone else will probably leave with a smile on their faces.

One fact that will be very apparent to anyone who watches this film is that this is another attempt to put a fresh face to the James Bond genre, in this case by using the extreme sports craze as a starting point. The references range from the subtle to the (more often) blatant. For instance, the opening scene features a spy in a tux wandering into a Rammstein concert and getting spotted easily and shot.

All the Bond cliches are there in vast quantities. This film has gadgets, the supervillan with the mansion in the hills complete with underground laboratory, a car with rocket launchers behind the headlights, walls that spin around to reveal an arsenal, the spymaster talking through a video phone, the list goes on.

This all begs the question what new this film has to offer, as everything else has been done so many times before. The only real thing it has is Vin Diesel, which is a hell of an asset when it comes to it. Sure, he's not going to win any Oscars but this isn't what this film is about. This guy has a very fresh brand of style, which anyone who has seen the Fast and the Furious will be familiar with. In that respect, he is perfectly cast. Even if he looks nothing like his stunt double...

And that's about it besides a lot of explosions and some over-the-top stunts. Enjoyable film yes, but I don't think that Bond is facing any real competition here.