Ranking The Terminator Franchise From Worst To Best

8. Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the worst instalment of this franchise. A carbon-copy remake of T2, Terminator 3 is nothing more than a TV movie with a $200 million dollar budget and twist ending.

T3’s story is a basic copy cat of T2’s story, as John Connor, his soon-to-be wife and Arnie try to prevent judgment day once again in 2004. But in this case, they fail. The earth is nuked as the Skynet is activated and the film ends as John accepts his fate as the leader of humankind.

The film offers nothing largely original and suffers from a series of lame gags such as the T-800 arriving in a strip club to get clothes, and lame jokes like “Talk to the hand.”

Well, okay, there’s a little more than that.

Nick Stahl does a good job portraying a young John Connor dealing with his destiny and trying to escape from that destiny. Additionally, the action, effects, and stunt work are very well executed and plotted, but they all suffer from lazy cinematography and shot selection. There are none of the awe-inspiring shots from Terminator and Terminator 2, aside from some flashes of the Future War.

Overall, this film feels like a cynical attempt to cash in on the paycheck and round out the series in a safe way to not ruin anything.