Review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) by Maymay A — 20 Dec 2014

James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, killer robots from the future, early 1990s. Do you realize what this means? If you guessed cartoon, what the fuck? No, this is a big-budget action movie with growing-in-popularity CGI effects. Probably the definitive film of that category, among the early 1990s. Terminator 2: Judgment Day switches the T-800 (AWRNULD) from being an unstoppable death machine programmed to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) to being an unstoppable death machine programmed to protect John Connor (Edward Furlong), Sarah's son. The robot set to kill John is the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a robot structured by metal that can melt at near room temperature. This means that the T-1000 is a shapeshifter. John is the future leader of the human army, fighting against the man-made robots in a future war. In the present setting, John is a ten-year-old rebellious brat with a thrill for action. Sarah is in a mental institute, as a result of the events of the first Terminator film. She is fearful of what the future holds -- Judgment Day, when a huge explosion wipes out most of the human race. Caused by the actions of Skynet, a corporation responsible for creating the killer robots, the Connors aim to prevent development in robotic technology so that Judgment Day and the war between humans and machines never happen. Whether that is possible or not is left ambiguous, a smart choice on the screenwriters' parts.

From more recent experience, I find James Cameron's stories to be dull, perhaps in relation to how he uses films primarily as means of reaching new technological feats in cinema. He has admitted this, too. Terminator 2 is thankfully an exception. The first half-hour lays out the stark, apocalyptic world resulting from Judgment Day. A middle-aged John Connor sends a lone robot to the past to protect himself. Which robot? I spoiled this already, but the film introduces the two terminators in a fashion to trick you. The slow-mo moment before T-800 and T-1000 fight for John Connor is very suspenseful. From there, the action satisfies my appetite for destruction. Speaking of which, the music, be that Brad Fiedel's familiar Terminator music, George Thorogood, or Guns 'n' Roses, fits perfectly well with the similarly hard-hitting action. The best action is when the T-1000 isn't operating some random vehicle. This is a shape-shifting robot. James Cameron does not need to drag out car chases, for the sake of everything, "making sense." The big explosions, which look as amazing as one might expected from James Cameron's wallet, aren't only employed for look-at-the-screen action. Sarah has a nightmare of what happens on Judgment Day. Fiery, city-devastating, and skin-melting, it's quite a horrifying divergence from the relatively clean action.

As with other classic action films, the calmer moments are entertaining too, kinda. Schwarzenegger isn't much of an actor, but his best role just may be the T-800. Oddly, he seems most human when under the mechanical constraint. His naivety to human interactions is refreshingly funny at some times, and heartwarming at other times. I'm not even that fond of fish-out-of-water jokes. John Connor does not help matters though. I'm rewriting this review to take him into account. While Sarah Connors holds out on her own finely, John is, as I said, a brat. For a future warrior, I wish he amounted to more than a comic relief kid with annoying lingo. Only now do I realize that I did not give a shit about his safety. How is that good for a plot based entirely around the life and death of that character? I suppose it's okay, as I found the "hasta la vista, baby" moment to be beautiful. The film isn't a comedy or even that light, though lighter than its predecessor. Terminator 2 deserves enough credit for both standing out separately from the first Terminator in its greater interest towards awesome action and evolution of the cinematic sci-fi robot, while also following the story by smartly establishing stakes that may result in the extinction of the human race, and how to terminate those stakes.