Made in 1991 Terminator 2: Judgement Day is the sequel to 1984’s The Terminator and features both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reprising their roles as the Terminator and Sarah Connor respectively. The film was directed by James Cameron, who also co-wrote and co-produced, and features new cast members Robert Patrick and Edward Furlong.
“I’ll be Back”
Sarah Conner (Hamiliton) has been incarcerated in an asylum for attempting to blow up a computer factory and her ten year old son John (Furlong) has been placed with a foster family. No one, not even John, believes that intelligent machines sent a human-looking assassin through time to kill her and she has been classified as insane.
Unbeknown to both John and Sarah, two more machines have been sent back through time, one to kill John and the other to protect him. The Terminator (Schwarzenegger) has been reprogrammed by the human resistance and is now serving as the protector to John Connor from an even more advanced Terminator, this one called a T-1000 (Patrick), and is made of liquid metal. Worse still, it is capable of altering its form to look like other people and producing knives and stabbing weapons from its own body.
The Terminator rescues John, who insists on going after his mother before the T-1000 can track her down. The three struggle to keep ahead of the T-1000, the human authorities, and change the future in order to prevent Judgement Day from taking place. They have to contend with Sarah’s mistrust of the Terminator because it looks identical to the one that tried to kill her back in 1984 and succeeded in killing Kyle.
Superior Sequel
There are very few films that manage to outshine their own predecessors, Ghostbusters II or Toy Story II are arguably among those that manage to do just that, however, there is no arguing that point with regards to Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It is a film that out performs The Terminator in every way. This time around the effects are truly seamless, the film includes groundbreaking CGI and special effects. It was nominated for numerous awards and won four Academy Awards, which were for makeup, sound mixing, sound editing and visual effects.
Taking the bad guy from the first film and making him good is inspired and creates a lot of the best moments between John and Sarah as they clash regarding what to do with the machine that Sarah believes could turn on them at any moment. Linda Hamilton has become almost unrecognisable, Sarah is no longer the naive waitress she once was, she is obsessed with preventing the war and training her son so he can be the leader he needs to be should her efforts fail.
Arnie is given the opportunity to expand on the character of the Terminator, in the previous film he was an unstoppable killing machine, in this film he is given more of a personality and gets to utter yet another immortal line.
Despite Robert Patrick’s rather unimpressive physical appearance he is more than a match for Arnie’s Terminator, which is exactly the point. Patrick isn’t as formidable looking as the former Mister Universe but his unimposing appearance makes him seem more frightening because he doesn’t look like a ruthless killing machine. Michael Biehn reprises his role as Kyle Reese but only appears in a cameo role (a cameo that didn’t appear in the original theatrical version but is in the extended or director’s cut versions).
Basically Terminator 2: Judgement Day is as flawless as a film could be, everything about it just works brilliantly. Linda Hamilton has transformed Sarah Connor into a warrior trying desperately to warn the world about what is going to happen. Arnie is once again magnificent as the Terminator, this time the character is fleshed out, and Edward Furlong is the perfect person for the role of John Connor.
5/5
This is, without a doubt, one of the best science fiction action films ever made.
Christopher Sharman - In 2009 I self-published my first novel entitled The Darkness Saga: The Light (currently available at amazon.co.uk) which has been ...
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