Having gone from one of the few actors in Hollywood whose association with a film would guarantee it box office success to being in a string of high-profile disasters, Arnold Schwarzenegger's career (political and thespian) needed a shot in the arm, and what better way than by resurrecting his most popular character for one more outing.  As James Cameron wasn't interested, Terminator 3 still seemed a little unlikely, but finally Jonathan Mostow stepped into the breach and what is reportedly the costliest movie in Hollywood history became reality.

While there is a degree of fondness for Brad Fiedel's mechanical synth scores for the first two films, in truth he is not much of a film composer and Mostow sought a bigger sound; after numerous names were banded-about, Mostow eventually went for Marco Beltrami, who went from being one of the brightest young composers in Hollywood around the time of Scream and Mimic to penning some of the blandest and least interesting scores in history on a succession of Z-grade horror flicks.  Surely some day he would once again show signs of the promise he had earlier exhibited, and frankly if he was going to ever do it, Terminator 3 was his best chance.

A bitter, vitriolic controversy arose in the world of film music fandom first when it was announced that Fiedel wouldn't provide the music, and again when Beltrami said he wouldn't be using the old Terminator theme.  I'm not really sure why - Fiedel's theme was suitably mechanistic but will hardly go down as one of the great musical works.  Instead, Beltrami and Mostow decided that - while synthesised elements had to remain - the orchestra should play a more prominent role this time around.  And, indeed, Beltrami fashioned his strongest score since Mimic.

This is an uncompromisingly brutal and dark work.  Given that most of his recent scores have seemed more heavily-diluted than a bottle of water, the most striking thing about Beltrami's efforts is how interesting the music is.  There is a lot of action music from start to finish, but somehow despite the abundance of percussion, it's never just crash-bang-whallop stuff like you might imagine, but Beltrami keeps things interesting and injects a real sense of balls-to-the-wall excitement.  There is a new theme, for John Conner this time, and while it pushes the right buttons, it's not really memorable and certainly not one of the score's strongest features.

While there is much to praise, there are also some cues that seem to do very little and, had they been sacrificed from the album, it would have made for a considerably stronger listen overall.

Rounding out the disc are an effective orchestral arrangement of Fiedel's original theme (for the end titles) and two original songs, one of which is by Beltrami, and both of which are very good.  I'm a little surprised by the reaction from the fan community to the finished product, with most commentators highlighting a lack of real excitement and saying it's too bland.  These are sentiments with which I would strongly disagree.  I've been so disappointed by so much of Beltrami's output that I feared the worst for this score, fears that were only exacerbated by comments elsewhere, but I find the finished product to be refreshing and impressive.  It's not exactly a classic, but it's certainly one of the strongest scores so far this year.

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