Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Hasta La Vista Baby!

Can someone outdo his own work? Well, James Cameron certainly did! In 1984 he rocked our socks off with the magnificent cyberpunk horror masterpiece The Terminator an uncertain future where AI has humanity enslaved. However, a time machine allows Kyle Reese to aid Sarah Connor onto securing her offspring's life. Nevertheless, a new tremor in our future call for immediate action...

Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was still a child. As before, the resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.

In 1991, Terminator 2 Judgment Day, tells whatever happened to Sarah Connor(Linda Hamilton) and her child John Connor(Edward Furlong) when they're faced with another threat from the future. This film is a perfect 10, because it takes the vision of one of the most imaginative directors on Earth, and realizes them almost perfectly with all the tools that fit the task -- actors, stunts, puppetry, models, and CG. Without the vision, this film would be nothing. Without the tools, this film would be nothing.

Judgment Day is here to stay...

...Not in our watch fuckers!

But, a little bit of background is due. This is the sequel to the Terminator (1984), whose premise was that a near-indestructible cyborg is sent by evil self-aware machines from the near future to destroy the mother-to-be of the military commander who would lead the humans to a victory over the machines. Oh, and this terminator machine would come from a time of war between men and machines which followed a nuclear exchange that left billions of people dead, first. In Terminator 2, John Connor (the commander-to-be) is about 12 years old, and his mother (Sarah) is feverishly trying to prepare him for his fate, even as she tries to stop the factors that will lead to the nuclear war and the entire terrible future that made all this necessary. The machines now send a superior, more intelligent, shape-shifting cyborg (T-1000) into the past, to kill John himself. Meanwhile, future-John reprograms a T-101 Terminator (just like the one from the original film) and sends him into the past to PROTECT John against the T-1000.

That's your basic plot. It does involve travel into the past, so it immediately presents a time-travel paradox which can't really be resolved. In order to even try watching this movie, you MUST LOOK PAST THE PARADOX. If you don't, this movie has zero credibility, and is not worth your time.

Man & Machine against the future.

Skynet, you're about to meet your maker.

What happens after the two terminators appear in the past is a wild ride rife with macho action, dark reflection on the nature of man, and a few rays of hope, here and there. Schwarzenegger (the good terminator) and Patrick (the bad one) make for such effective foes that the times they meet on-screen are completely breathtaking (and odd, given that you repeatedly see the relatively slim T1000 through Arnie through a wall or two). Hamilton, as Sarah Connor, is a wonderful character -- tough beyond all belief and completely focused on preventing the nuclear war and ensuring John's safety, yet clearly a little out of her mind with paranoia and anger; amazingly, you see actual character development (specifically, when John and T101 arrive at Dyson's house to prevent her from doing what she wants to) in her otherwise 2-dimensional character. And Furlong, as John, is not bad himself as the extroverted kid who's confused by the fact that everyone except his mom tell him his entire upbringing was based on a lie. The bit players all do their jobs well, particularly Earl Boen who plays the semi-sadistic mental hospital warden that stands between Sarah Connor and her son (until the T1000 makes a chilling entrance).
With these players set in motion, it's up to the script to deliver the real substance of the movie. (One often sees great performances in mediocre films... here the story transcends the performances -- an impressive feat.) The script delivers. The film is absolutely filled with great, classic moments, and they're evenly spaced through the movie. I mean, who doesn't cheer (at least inside) when Arnold steps out of the biker bar, fully clad in leather when "Bad to the Bone" music starts to blast? The guy absolutely bleeds coolness. And the T1000 absolutely bleeds evil. But, with so many great moments, you'd think the pacing would be a little uneven... not really! The film shifts from place to place with an ease that makes perfect sense, never giving you the time to start being a little nitpicking jerk, always driving forward, but always doing so thoughtfully and with attention to detail.

Boy it's hot in 1991.

Nope!

Of course, this wouldn't be an action movie without some action. There's plenty of it, and it's perfectly done. The CG effects for the shape-shifting T1000 were cutting-edge for the time, and still look great (whoever said differently is simply incorrect) -- even if they're completely commonplace today. The stunts are completely insane in scale (at one point, a helicopter flies under a highway overpass; at another, a motorcycle jumps from the 2nd floor of a building into a flying chopper). (Probably, only the Matrix and the Lord of the Rings movies compare in terms of the level of stunt insanity.) And the gunplay is delivered in perfect Cameron-Schwarzenegger style (as opposed to the slo-mo John Woo-style) -- you'll see lots of heavy automatic and explosive weapons, and you'll see them used well. The film is violent, and somewhat bloody, but ALL of the mean-spirited violence is dealt by the evil characters, not the ones you root for (Quentin Tarantino fans: sorry). And then the truly amazing scenes that bypass acting are shocking and memorable -- just wait until the nuclear detonation sequence.

Unlike many Sci-Fi films, T2 not only offers the viewer a stunning collection of action sequences packed with magnificent special effects. What makes the sequel better than its predecessor is the fact that we get to see a lot of character development as the film develops to the climax.  For instance, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton takes her acting skills to the limit here) is being held captive in a mental institution because, you know, nobody would buy her machines-killing humans-through time travel-story. through her performance you not only see her struggle, you can feel her pain. Then there's John Connor (Furlong) a kid in his teens, playing arcade, listening to Public Enemy, and trying to be cool while doing stunts only teens are amazed at. He thinks his mother is crazy, and hates his foster parents but everything changes when he finds himself in the middle of a bike chase of proportions. But wait, that's not all! even the T-101, a cyborg, a heartless machine offers character development as he's reset by Sarah Connor to allow him to learn human language & behavior on the go.

Die human scum!

What? can't we have a little fun?

The secondary characters, although with very little on screen time, do deliver convincing performances. Robert Patrick as the antagonist T-1000 depicts a heartless machine with brutal AI.

Music also plays a relevant role here, what can be more 90's than featuring songs from "Use Your Illusion I & II" from Guns ´n´Roses?  Well, maybe the Arcade Center adds up for more 90's nostalgia love. Had this movie being premiered after September 1991 I'm sure the soundtrack would have definitely featured Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains & Soundgarden.

 

I'm not sure what else you would want in a movie. Probably moral content, and the movie has a very clear pro-human, anti-war message. The message is a bit stale, and the delivery IS, at times, a little heavy-handed (and some moments with the T101 seem just a bit unrealistic, towards the end), but the movie has heart, and that you cannot deny. Plus, it simply rocks. 10/10

Here's the movie trailer:

And Guns 'n' Roses popular tune: