With an Arnie-less T4 in development, this could prove the last outing for Governor Schwarzenegger's leather-kecked, shade-sporting automaton, as machine-efficient action-man Jonathan Mostow jump-starts the post-Cameron series. Scratch your scalp 'til it bleeds and the story still won't make sense, but the slight slip into self-parody is balanced by Kristanna Loken's cool Terminatrix and special effects that astonish, even in our been-there, seen-it age. The highway smash-up is especially memorable.

DVD Extras:

Mostow has already admitted this is not the definitive T3 DVD - - with various Ultimate, Extra-Special, Rip-Off editions to come - - but only series obsessives will be dissatisfied with the proficient package presented here.Grumbles first: adverts disguised as featurettes, with a long-winded look at the video game, and comic-guru-cum-toymaker Todd McFarlane flogging action figures (and a dead horse). The Create Your Own Visual Effects function is also somewhat anticlimactic, offering limited opportunities to manipulate certain scenes' FX. Much more impressive are the other featurettes, examining the movie's money shots - including the aforementioned highway crane-chase sequence. ""I probably tortured a lot of people at ILM to make sure that thing looked real"," says Mostow on his informative commentary, which reveals the extent of Stan Winston's wizardry and highlights how many effects we're unaware of or take for granted. Elsewhere, Terminal Flaws is an amusing blooper reel, Skynet Database a slick character guide and Terminator Timeline... Well, guess. The Dressed To Kill featurette and short storyboard-to-film comparison are of limited use, but the Making Of is an informative 12 minutes and the Sgt Candy deleted scene features the human archetype for Arnie's `soldier of tomorrow'. Finally, there's another commentary pieced together from the principals, with everyone voluble and Arnie proving most amusing/unsettling given the recent revelations about his private life: ""This scene with the enlargement of the breasts was fantastic!""