“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” is a film without a point, a film that didn’t need to… “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” is a film without a point, a film that didn’t need to be made and a film that, worst of all, leaves you asking, “Why should I care about this or what came before it?””T3” revolves around yet another Terminator, the T-X (Kristanna Loken), who was sent back through time to kill all of John Connor’s (Nick Stahl) lieutenants because, as the T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) explains, Connor couldn’t be located. That’s an interesting development, considering that, 12 years ago, the T-1000 – obsolete compared to the T-X – seemed very willing and able to take the necessary steps to locate the future head of the human resistance against the machines.

The T-X must be really lazy.

One of the targets on the T-X’s list is Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), a veterinarian who, in the future, is Connor’s wife and second-in-command. It turns out that she sent the T-101 back through time to protect herself and, in the process, sets into motion the events that lead the two young freedom fighters-to-be on the path of love. Nothing like a good, half-assed paradox to get you through the heat and humidity of the summer.

But why does any of this take place? All the cybernetic stuff that would eventually lead to the destruction of mankind was destroyed in “Terminator 2.” That was the point of the film, after all: to prevent Judgment Day. Luckily, we get a quarter-baked explanation from the T-101 – Judgment Day is inevitable.

Great. Why watch the movie if the goal, to stop Judgment Day, can’t be achieved?

In this newest installment, the guiding hand of “Terminator” creator and visionary James Cameron is entirely absent, and it’s sorely missed. With his absence, the film loses direction, writing, effects, scope, story, character development and pace.

In his place is director Jonathan Mostow, directing a film written by three people who give us lines like, “Talk to the hand,” – coming from Arnold – and situations where the once-intimidating screen presence is made to wear Elton John-esque, star-shaped glasses. Nothing is off-limits for this writing trio’s disgusting use of self-parody.

Then there is the new, female Terminator. Why is the T-X a woman? It’s nice to see sexual equality existing in science fiction, but the T-X exists, only to satisfy the wet dreams of nerds and geeks. This character could have easily been a male and accomplished the same aim as is accomplished with Loken – nothing. The idea of a female Terminator is an interesting one; shame on the writers for squandering it only to fulfill their high school fantasies.

But that’s symptomatic of the overall lack of character development. These characters are as one-dimensional as one-dimensional gets. We meet them, stuff happens, they give in and accept their fate. The previous two films were all about characters that had a burden of fate thrust on them and how they dealt with that burden internally and externally; a bunch of action-oriented things just happened to them along the way. In the process, they became more than characters; they became people. Here, we get action, action, action and pesky characters thrown into the mix. Luckily, Cameron is “King of the World,” so the pain from this destruction of his cinematic creation will be somewhat numbed.Mostow’s direction is just as bad as the writing. The scope here is that of a bad made-for-TV film that gets played at noon on a Sunday on UPN. Everything is closed off, fake and mundane. There are periods in the film where you can almost smell the soundstage on which they are filming. Cameron used real places, but when he used sets, they were gigantic things that echoed reality. Here, that approach was thrown away to spend more on the special effects, which are, surprisingly, horrendous.

The fights between the T-X and T-101 are poorly created, and anyone with a functional handful of brain cells can tell when these scenes become fake. “T2” had real fights between the two Terminators. They made the film more real than it would have been by just seeing a liquid metal guy running around and shape shifting. In “T3,” however, the geniuses who thought the film was a good idea in the first place have again shredded the playbook from the previous films and opted to go with lackluster CGI effects. And, given the astronomical budget this film had, the special effects should have been good enough to be a saving grace. Instead, they’re salt in the wound.

The anger and resentment that “T3” will churn up in fans of the classic “T2” has no bounds. Everything about it is bad. There is no redeeming value. Ultimately, the film seems to exist only to create a “T4,” yet another unnecessary entry into the series. How dare these “creative forces” take the “Terminator” films and defile and exploit them, simply because Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and caught in the throngs of sequel and prequel madness?

Where “T2” had scope, story, characters, effects and action so good that awe dripped off of every frame, the only thing that drips off “T3” is the three-week-old cheese you get with those overpriced nachos at the concession stand.