Review by Jay Pinkerton

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I remember when the trailer for Scary Movie first started showing up on television, I was sure — utterly convinced — the film would bomb spectacularly. In fact, I would tell anybody who would listen that Scary Movie would bomb spectacularly, so convinced was I of the film's self-evident awfulness.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered that nobody much cared about my opinion one way or the other; and, since I desperately wanted people to know ahead of time that I thought the movie would bomb (so they'd know how smart I was when it did), I was forced to resort to attention-getting tactics to keep their attention. "How can a movie starring black people possibly do well?" I'd muse thoughtfully.

Once they registered the proper indignation and outrage, I'd quickly interject that Scary Movie looked like utter stool, and that it was guaranteed to fall flat on its face. "Well, yes, I guess, fine," they'd say, exasperated. "But still — God, man."

"Perhaps I could have picked a better way to get your attention," I'd admit, snaking out my arm suddenly and bopping them on the head with a coffee mug.

"Ow!" they'd yell. "What the hell did you do that for, you crazy asshole?"

I would then laugh dismissively, helpfully explaining my theory about attention-getting tactics when discussing Scary Movie's imminent failure, then brush away their scared, perplexed stares while I explained my stance on Scary Movie's imminent failure a second time and, in all honesty, urinated on their shoes.

I don't usually get this passionate about the box office receipts of awful-looking comedies, I admit. Usually I'd put the degree of concern I feel as to the success or failure of Marlon Wayans vehicles somewhere between "I hope this toothpaste controls tartar as effectively as it says it does" and "I wonder if this brand of fabric softener is more effective than other, and plausibly less superior, fabric softeners I usually purchase" on my passionate conviction scale.

Scary Movie was the exception for me, however. While most spoof comedies (Naked Gun, Airplane) are just as stupid-looking, Scary Movie had the distinction of actually being idiotic enough to spoof a film (Scream) that was itself a spoof comedy. This leads you down one of three paths: that writer/director Keenan Ivory Wayans was too lazy to care that he was satirizing a movie already satirizing itself; that he was too dense to notice; or that he'd simply made a death-bed promise to Ma "revolving door uterus" Wayans that he'd find some work, somewhere, for all 3,016 of her appallingly large brood. None of these choices instilled me with the confidence that usually leads to ticket purchases.

Making things worse was the fact that the trailer was thuddingly unfunny — little more than a collage of tired pop culture references. As a comedic device, the pop culture shout-out has always held the same sort of appeal to me as watching someone get batted in the temple repeatedly with a frying pan. The implication with the pop-culture reference seems to be that there's no need to come up with an actual punchline when the joke itself can simply be to point at something popular and tell people your awareness of its existence. Witness:

"Hey, Phil! Here's a funny joke I just heard! The Matrix! Get it? The MATRIX! It's a movie, and I know it exists, and I just TOLD YOU SO!"

And so, as I mentioned, I just somehow knew that Scary Movie was simply too embarrassing to be viewed by non-retarded human beings. It would, I was confident, die a quick plummeting death in the theater.

$157,000,000 gross. To everyone who paid $12 to watch Scary Movie, thus sending the clear message to Hollywood that this is the sort of film you like to see: I hate you so much. If given half a chance, I would punch you a million times each.

Either way, once bitten, twice shy. I ended up looking like an idiot with my Scary Movie call, and the experience made me, like the cunning fox, so much wilier. This time I'm not going to predict what I really think, at least not out in the open. Rest assured, though, the savvier among you might be able to break the ingeniously complex coding in which I've hidden my true thoughts. The rest of you will only get half the story. So it goes.

Bringing us to Terminator 3: Machines A-Risin'! Every atom of my being tells me that this is going to be the shittiest pile of shit-ridden shit in the history of fecal matter, and anyone who thinks it looks pretty darned exciting and tells me so will get a huge hit in the head with a sock full of nickels! T3 is such an obvious cash-in from Arnold "Nose-Dive" Schwarzenegger, who's worn out all the good will he earned from his early-career megahits, it all but promises to violently penetrate to tatters every favorable memory you might have held from the first two films. No, no one who sees this film will possibly be a winner. This time around Nick Stahl, star of nothing I could name, but it's possible he's been in several straight-to-video films, takes on the role of John Connor made infamous by Edward Furlong. Claire Danes co-stars as John Connor's plucky girlfriend, who must struggle with a huge loss of dignity, as clearly she's made a poor career decision. She must decide whether to believe John's crazy story: the world's about to end, and two robots from the future have been sent back in time! Just like in the last two fucking films! Arnold Schwarzenegger dials it in so obviously that he doesn't even have to be conscious when he reprises his performance from the last two films, attempting to save John Connor's life, with the fate of the world at stake …again, apparently.

In other words: if you liked T2, prepare to buckle your seatbelts and hang on, because you're in for the ass-raping of a lifetime, thinly veiled as the pseudo-movie event of the year. Everybody from the best grip to the third-best grip who was involved with the original Terminator series is back for another round! Watching the trailer, one thing was clear: This wasn't an example of director/creater Jim Cameron snapping awake one morning with a brilliant premise for expanding the Terminator series and a fire to get that vision up onscreen. This is an example of a rapidly aging man in denial having his last three films flopping, and that same cut of gristly porkloin sprinting back to the well to dredge up a third helping of his last hit, whether it needed to be made or not.

In conclusion, expect Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines to destroy the careers of every spam-headed Hollywood executive who thought they could slap the Terminator name on a turd like this and expect us to run out and break every box office record there is! If you thought the T-1000 was frightening, wait'll you get a look at Kristanna Loken! Who isn't! Starring as a cheap Trinity knock-off called the dreaded T-X, you can bet safe money that X stands for X-treme, because yes, the film looks just that stupid. More likely, expect X to mark the spot where your treasured memories of the series ger buried alive. If the idea of a good-looking model kicking the crap out of Arnold Schwarzenegger strikes you as awesome, then you're thinking the same thing I am: You're an enormous sissy who says things like "Grrl Power!" with no thought to how embarrassing you look when you do.

T3 promises to be the final nail in the coffin for Arnold Schwarzenegger's slow-death of a failed comeback. See you in hell, you sheep, because you certainly won't see me in theaters!

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