Trancers III (1992)

Although I adore the first film, even I have to admit "Trancers 3" might just be the best of the series, from a technical standpoint. KNB's makeup effects (you see veins bulge while a trancer soldier Robinson is in bed with helps to control her inner rage, a soldier fight results in the loser having his throat ripped out, lots of folks shot dead with plentiful blood squibs, a bullet to the forehead of a trancer posing as a cop, etc.) are solid, Thomerson's Jack Deth still has plenty of quips, attitude, and trancer hating left in him as the heroic Jack Deth, some minor characters are introduced that are fun while they last (the mechanical Shark and trancer spy Melanie Smith make for good sidekicks), C Courtney's script is actually ambitious even if the budget wasn't enough to really get the most out of the multi-year, time-travel, covert super soldier defense department, trancer army building story, and there's plenty of action (even a bar fight where one of the trancers really takes apart some strip club patrons). 

  Major weakness is that with all the effort by Andrew Robinson to build Colonel Muthah as a serious adversary to Jack Deth as a trancer army leader using a type of addictive steroid to beef up soldiers, the final confrontation between the two doesn't quite have the impact it should. In fact Deth is able to do very well against Muthah and his officers once Smith's RJ (and Shark, arriving to help against one of the beefiest of Muthah's men) frees him from a table all strapped and a victim of drugging also. 

  What I did really like was the direction of the first thirty minutes before Jack travels to 2005 to locate Lena, plucked by Shark in the early 90s while struggling in the PI business of "old LA" before he could meet his soon-to-be-divorced-wife in the hopes of reconciling their failed marriage. The "down the line" to 2035 where Muthah's trancer army led to disastrous results for the Council (only Stephen Macht's Harris remains left, appealing to Jack to help stop the trancers from ever forming in the first place) and a need to travel to 2005 in order to rectify it. I realize that all the traveling back and forth through time could easily get taken apart by critical scrutiny, but I always just went with it. C Courtney's script actually adds some sort of explanation to Trancers, so I appreciated that, too.

  While I get that plenty of Trancers II viewers just didn't like it at all, I personally did for the very reason they didn't: the love triangle. I thoroughly enjoy that about the film, so that being missing in Part 3 was actually a bummer. While I recognize Lena's departure from the series as bittersweet, Helen Hunt even returning at all is a plus in the film's favor. And she is, of course, very good in like the minutes she has. You get finality with Lena. She's a news reporter with an adorable daughter and a "down to earth" husband. While Jack and Lena, with a home, kissing warmly and affectionately at the end of Part 2 made me smile; the inevitable breakup was destined to happen since Jack Deth has always been a trancer hunter. She deserved to have a better life than he could provide. But, at least, C Courtney and Charles Band were able to land her for a small part in order to close that chapter. Meanwhile, Megan Ward also returned for the sequel as a soldier, as was Telma Hopkins as a doctor and eventual member of the Council. But, sadly, McNulty died (well in the 2005 timeline before Jack Deth "corrected" it by killing Muthah), according to Harris. It can all get a bit confusing, the time alterations. You'd think sending Deth up and down time lines, there would be some sort of "malfunction" that caused a butterfly effect.