That look she gives you when you tell her you are doing this movie because you got the maid pregnant

That look she gives you when you tell her you are doing this movie because you got the maid pregnant

In recent years, women have been portrayed stronger in films and TV. I love this. I grew up around strong women and I’m glad that characters are starting to make their way to the front that are similar in spirit to the women (mostly my mom) that brought me up. It is becoming old-hat to have the damsel in distress trope. Women are getting more kickass characters and I can’t get enough of them. This is going to be part 1 of a 2 part movie review/editorial about strong female characters in movies. Villains have a tendency to be the most fun characters and luckily they aren’t limited to being bad-guys anymore. I wouldn’t call Terminator 3 a good movie, but it is a good example of a strong female antagonist.

Terminator 2 is a tough act to follow; that’s why it took 12 years to make a sequel. If this movie wasn’t an actual Terminator movie, so it wouldn’t get that direct comparison, it would actually be pretty good. The problem is that they took the source material and concept from T2 and turned it into this: (pic of Arnold in Elton John Glasses)

Kristanna Loken you may recognize as one of the leads in The Asylum’s Expendabelles movie (Shameless plug to my review: http://wp.me/p2DiuX-bD1). I referred to her as Hot Terminator 3 in that review and I was absolutely right. She did a great job with what she had to work with and was really good as an emotionless killing machine. She did a good job in making the character believable as a Terminator and funny in the couple jokes she was given. I feel like she didn’t get enough credit for her role here.

Intelligent liquid metal but you can't even afford a phone with decent reception?

Intelligent liquid metal but you can’t even afford a phone with decent reception?

Funny enough, a couple franchises that have added to the much needed list of strong females villains in movies are the Harry Potter series (based on a book but still counts) and Kill Bill. If you haven’t seen any of the Harry Potter movies then I suggest you put down the 10 year old MRE, open the hatch of the bunker you have been living in, make a friend, and check it out. Kill Bill is a nice couple of movies too. These films feature some really good strong female villains that have a lot of the qualities you want in a villain. Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill are similar in that they aren’t inherently evil but more victims of circumstance and severe abuse. O-Ren was arguably made evil by the mob killing her family and Dolores was arguably made evil by her father making her hate her muggle mother and brother, leading into her hatred of all muggles. The main reason these two stand out for me is that they are in universes of seemingly evil people but their characters were given enough depth to make them relatable.

I want a Claire Danes bayonet

I want a Claire Danes bayonet

Back to killer robots, Arnold Schwarzenegger was too old to play the Terminator in this movie without explaining his age. He was born in 1947 making him 37 for The Terminator in 1984, 44 in 1991 for T2 and 56 for T3. He has always been in great shape for the Terminator movies and trying to look 37 is much easier when you are 44 then when you are 56. At least in Terminator Genisys they explained why he looked to be in his 60’s. I feel like it’s time for a new actor to be the Terminator if they want to keep the franchise going. My suggestion is Brett Azar, he’s the body double for the T-800 in Genisys. It can’t be hard to play a robot: read all of your lines like you are the human version of Wikipedia. I’m just saying with a fresh face and good story, they can have a whole new fanbase they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

TLDR: Terminator 3 is an OK movie but sucks in comparison to T2 and female bad-guys kick lots of ass. As always I am Tim McDonald, your movie watching stunt double. Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook to make suggestions or comments. I would like to thank Rob Cmor for his picture caption submission that won on Facebook.