This is starting to get a bit draining. This seems to be the weaker of the lot so far. One thing that seemed a bit different was the audio encoding was dolby 5.1 not DTS, although the sound was actually good I did need to increase the volume a bit more.
Cover of the bluray edition
The chase scene with the crane was pretty intense and I was surprised by a long section with no music tracking, just the sounds of crashing metal on concrete, which was actually pretty good. I had seen this once in the cinemas during the original release year I think and have to admit I did not remember the ending. It was actually pretty clever link into the original story line.
There was a contrast of acting between Kate Brewster (Claire Dane )and John Connor (Nick Stahl) seemed a little bit extreme.
The other thing that has been fun to see is the evolution of technology through the series.
Why is this called Rise of the machines? well in this movie we see the development of the technology that was shown in the original terminator.
tech detail: watched this on blu ray.