Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Poster to the right: just another sign of how awesome this film is.

A bigger, better Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is gunning for a shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick) who’s out to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), the son of Sarah (Linda Hamilton), the original Terminator’s nemesis.

After watching T1 and realizing that it’s still one bangin’ sci-fi action film, I realized that this one is not only bangin’ as well, but one of the best sequels of all-time.

The story is the same thing again but the catch here is that Arnold is the good bot this time around and the villain is a dude, who’s body is made liquid metal which practically makes him invincible. This is what leads into plenty of robot vs. robot action sequences, which are just freakin’ awesome,

Writer, producer, and director James Cameron makes everything work amazingly well here because he just has that perfect sense of style and taste to make almost every single piece of his film work. Each action sequence is about 25 to 30 minutes long but each one is better than the last one that came before it and as the bullets get blown, death rates go up, and cars go BOOOOOOOOM it never feels dumb. This is just action that is meant to be here in this film and that’s what makes it really awesome.

The special effects that were ground-breaking at its time, still actually look a lot better than some of the big-budget, 3-D piles of junk that we have come out nowadays. The morphing sequences that the metal dude does is totally cool to see and I wonder how cool it would have been to just have seen all these special effects happening at once. A very good movie to look at I must say, which is something not said much about action films.

There’s also some very good moments of humanity within this film that actually work when they do pop-up but my problem with this film was that there wasn’t enough of that which may seem a bit odd and strange to say about a film about two robots beating the shit out of each other. There is a powerful message about life and humanity in the end but it’s not actually brought up that much throughout the whole film to actually have a huge effect on you when it’s over. This may seem like a dumb complaint but I think with just a bit more human scenes, T2 could have actually been one more step above your ordinary action flick.

To say the least, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the freakin’ man in this film as the good Terminator now. Although he may not be able to keep it in his pants in today’s world, Arnie at one time owned just about every single action film he showed up in because he has that muscular body that fits so well, that blank stare that just scares the shit out of you as soon as you see it, and that same tone he uses for almost every scene and made me totally believe him as a robot. It’s crazy to think that we’re talking about the same dude who’s “The Governator of Kellyfornia” but he is just the freakin’ man no matter what and this film is the perfect example as to why.

It’s a shame that the rest of the cast didn’t actually do much after this, and right here may have been their only real shining moments. Linda Hamilton does a total 180 from this perm-wearing, cutsie bootsie 80’s gal to this totally spiked-out, G.I. Jane looking figure and she does a great job with it too but she’s rarely ever seen in today’s world of Hollywood. Edward Furlong is good as lil’ John Connor and got arrested awhile back for releasing lobsters from a seafood restaurant but he was in American History X so that kind of makes up for it all. And Robert Patrick, as the bad Terminator, is good here but shows up here and there but most famously in that train-wreck they call, The Marine. Basically, John Cena sucks.

Consensus: Terminator 2: Judgment Day may have needed more human moments to convey that emotional depth it wanted to, but the action is amazing, the visual effects will have your eyes pop-out even today, and the stylized direction from James Cameron make this one of the best sequels of all-time.

9/10=Full Pricee!!