'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines' (2003): Somehow, it works

Kristanna Loken and Arnold Schwarzenegger in T3

Sequels that come out long after their last installments are almost always a huge letdown.

It's very hard for them to feel fresh and the delay builds a level of audience anticipation that can almost never be satisfied with the results.

Was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull really so horrible?

In my opinion, no. But after nearly 20 years of rumors and excitement surrounding a new Indiana Jones film it was definitely disappointing.

In 2003 a new Terminator movie should have sucked, but it didn't.

It still has some of the cornball qualities of Terminator 2 (I don't like seeing the Terminator show affection, it just feels wrong) but it's faster paced and brings back some of the dark, brooding elements of the first film, which I appreciate.

I had serious questions about how they resolved the timeline issue (T2 seemed to be a definitive conclusion) but I like how the film paints judgment day as inevitable -- the end of T2 simply delayed the rise of the machines.

The actors all acquit themselves adequately but this was all about Arnold Schwarzenegger going out like a boss.

He would become the governor of California like this and like any good politician he wanted to exit the movie business on a high note.

This was about burnishing his image as an action hero icon and he succeeded (the film would be his highest grossing movie ever domestically after T2).

The humor in his one doesn't feel as forced (albeit except for the 'talk to the hand' gag) and I like it's knowing nods to the first two.

In the first Terminator, Schwarzenegger dons sunglasses for the pragmatic purpose of covering up his disfigured eye, in the two sequels the shades are now just a stylish part of the character's look.

T3 lacks James Cameron's vision and skill but it is endlessly watchable and entertaining and I'm so impressed that such an expensive mainstream blockbuster would retain themes about technology going corrupt and causing the end of the world. Heavy stuff for a summer movie.

Rumor has it there are plans in the works for a fifth Terminator movie. Terminator: Salvation, if memory serves, had some nifty action sequences but you felt the loss of Schwarzenegger and Christian Bale made for a surprisingly bland John Connor.

Schwarzenegger is supposed to play some role in the new one which seems like too little too late at this point. The man is 66 years old and there really is no more story to tell with his character. So the calculation can only be that there's more money to be made but with diminishing returns I fear this series will become a mockery of what it once was.

But the truth is no one expected the first Terminator to be any good 30 years ago. It was a grim sci-fi movie starring an Austrian body builder whose name people couldn't pronounce yet. And look what happened.

Expectations terminated.