Rating
Summary
Terminator 2 really is one of the greatest films of all time and will always be Arnie’s finest hour.
Plot: The cyborg who once tried to kill Sarah Connor is dead, and another T-800 must now protect her teenage son, John Connor, from an even more powerful and advanced Terminator, the T-1000.
Review: Everyone tends to agree that Die Hard is the best action movie ever made however, I think that it may just be beaten by T2. This is quite frankly a flawless masterpiece of action cinema.
I remember seeing it 5 times when it was first released in theatres and I had never seen anything like it; in fact I believe I saw it before even seeing the first movie.
You’ve got a great story, characters you care about and great writing. A great example is Arnie being taught how to do the “thumbs up” earlier in the movie and then doing it again in the finale. This is a great demonstration of how the character of the Terminator has its own journey and how it now understands human behaviour better.
Terminator 2 is one of those few sequels that may actually be better than the classic original. Brad Fiedel’s amazing industrial score provides the greatest introductory scene in cinematic history.
Who will ever forget that playground on fire and the Endoskeleton coming out of the flames? The music is exciting but also sombre, which really adds to the atmosphere of impending doom.
The dream sequence with the nuclear explosion is still equally as haunting today as it was at the time. The visuals are absolutely amazing and over 20 years later still stand the test of time.
In terms of acting I really have to say that Linda Hamilton doesn’t get enough credit as Sarah Connor. I think her transformation from waitress in the first movie to full-on warrior woman in T2 is amazing. She’s ruined by the events of a future she can’t stop and is driven crazy by it. Her performance is believable, disturbing and sympathetic.
Robert Patrick pretty much steals the movie as the liquid metal T-1000 sent through time to kill John Connor; he is cold, emotionless and utterly cool.
Edward Furlong plays Connor as a smart ass teen and he has one scene which always bothered me. The scene where he finds out that the Terminator will do whatever he asks and then gets him to beat up the two guys, who come over to help him. That always leaves a bad taste; I mean, they were there to help him. Little prick, I guess it was to show how immature he was and that he had a long way to go before becoming this “great military leader”.
That’s the only flaw really; the movie is the reason why I fell in love with film in the first place and I believe it was the first R rated movie I saw in the cinema. When you go back and watch Terminator 3 and Salvation, although not bad films they really are unnecessary. To me Terminator 2 is a perfect film so what was the point in trying to do better?
Overall, it really is one of the greatest films of all time and will always be Arnie’s finest hour.
