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Terminator 2: Judgement Day Reviews

Critical reception

The Montreal Film Journal calls it "one of the best crafted Hollywood action flicks." Screenwriting guru Syd Field lauds the plot of Terminator 2, saying, for example, "every scene sets up the next, like links in a chain of dramatic action." The film was placed #33 on Total Film's 2006 list of The Top 100 Films of All Time. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, currently scoring 97% on the popular review-aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and 69/100 on the similarly themed Metacritic.

At the 64th Academy Awards, the film won four Academy Awards: Best Sound, Best Make Up, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound Editing. It was nominated for two additional Academy Awards, Best Cinematography and Film Editing. It also won big at the 1992 MTV Movie Awards. The film took Best Movie and Best Action Sequence, Linda Hamilton won Best Female Performance and Most Desirable Female, Edward Furlong Best Breakthrough Performance and Arnold Schwarzenegger won Best Male Performance.

In 2003, The American Film Institute released its list of the 100 greatest screen heroes and villains of all time. The Terminator appeared as number 48 on the list of heroes for its appearance in T2, as well as number 22 on the list of villains for its appearance in the first Terminator. This is the only instance where the "same" character appears on both lists, though technically they are different characters based on the same model. During the 2008 AFI's 10 Top 10, it was voted the eighth best science fiction film ever made.

'A Lustrous Machine'
By Hal Hinson

July 03, 1991 - James Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is a lustrous machine, all gleaming steel and burnished gunmetal, with state-of-the-art nuts and bolts. You relate to it the way you might relate to any overpowering machine, a little dispassionately but with a respect bordering on awe. It's a tank of a movie, big, powerful and hard to resist. But it's a tank with lightning treads and jaguar agility. The stunning special effects show something that's rare these days -- technical stunts that evoke a true sense of wonder; it's real jaw-to-the-floor stuff.

As a sequel, "Terminator 2" is more imposing than its predecessor, and it lacks the B-movie modesty of the original. The original "Terminator" was science fiction with an element of shaggy poetry; this "Terminator" strives more for the mythic. It's heroic pulp. The circumstances of the two are similar. Once again, two warriors have been beamed from the future back to our time, and once again, one warrior must protect the subject that the other was sent to destroy.

In this case, the Terminator's mission is to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), the young son of Sarah (Linda Hamilton), so that he cannot grow up to become the great leader of the resistance that he would after the world has been blown to bits in a nuclear conflagration. The boy's protector in this second film is another T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), like the cyborg that combined machine and living tissue that was sent to kill his mother 10 years ago.

The T-800's adversary this time out is a more sophisticated version of himself, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), which is made from a kind of liquid metal -- a "mimetic polyalloy," it's called -- that allows it to change shape at will and renders it virtually indestructible. The T-1000 is a sleeker, faster version of the earlier Terminator -- it plays cat to Schwarzenegger's raging bull -- but it has its predecessor's single-mindedness. The movie exists on a very basic level; it's one long chase in which the new Terminator tries to get the boy away from the older one.

The film sets up a monumental battle of the Titans, and it doesn't disappoint. The confrontations between these two unstoppable forces are thrilling death bouts between equally matched gladiators. As they hammer each other, the outcome of the fight seems genuinely uncertain. But the film's real virtues emerge in its quieter moments when the characters are given a chance to interact. The subtext here is much richer than in the first; it's a movie about family and finding a father. When the Terminator is on the run with Sarah and John, he becomes the strong patriarchal figure at the center of their makeshift nuclear family.

The roles in this family-during-wartime, though, are hilariously reversed. It's the kid who teaches the father how to cope in the world, how to use slang like "chill" and "no problemo," how to "give five" and, more important, how to feel. John also teaches his surrogate dad a grudging respect for human life, which further contributes to the film's new age spirit. It's this element that is most unique and most satisfying -- that and the richness Schwarzenegger brings to his character. It's comical, perhaps, but Schwarzenegger expresses more of his own humanity when playing a machine than he does when playing real people.

He's a hopelessly wooden actor, but that artificiality and his "Fun With Phonics" style of delivery is perfect for his character here, and perfect for the film's deadpan sense of humor. For once, he's ideally cast, and he brings the kind of delicacy of feeling that Boris Karloff showed as the Frankenstein monster. As a machine, he has soul. Unfortunately, the other Terminator doesn't, and that's one of this movie's biggest problems. Unlike in the first film, there's no one to identify with on the other side. The effects for this character, however, are smashing too.

Cameron manages to create a neat balance between the technical and the human here; so much so that this surfaces as one of the movie's themes. Most of the actors make strong statements, including Hamilton, who's Nautilused herself into the form of a modern-day Diana, and Furlong, who gives one of the loosest performances for a child actor ever filmed. As the brain behind SkyNet, the computer that goes out of control and causes the nuclear nightmare, Joe Morton also makes the most of a few minutes on screen. No one in the movies today can match Cameron's talent for this kind of hyperbolic, big-screen action.

Cameron, who directed the first "Terminator" and "Aliens," doesn't just slam us over the head with the action. In staging the movie's gigantic set pieces, he has an eye for both grandeur and beauty; he possesses that rare director's gift for transforming the objects he shoots so that we see, for example, the lyrical muscularity of an 18-wheel truck. Because of Cameron, the movie is the opposite of its Terminator character; it's a machine with a human heart.

Three Out of Four Stars
By John Beachem

It's been ten years since the first terminator came from the future and tried to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of John Connor (Edward Furlong), who will grow up to lead the human resistance against the machines. Now, two such machines have come to the past. One, the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), has been sent by the resistance to protect young John Connor. The other, an advanced prototype called the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), has been sent to kill John. At this point in time, John is a juvenile delinquent, living with his foster parents (Jenette Goldstein, Xander Berkeley), who he can't stand.

Sarah Connor is locked in a mental institute, under the "care" of Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen). Now that the machines have returned, Sarah realizes there may be only one way to defeat them once and for all: kill Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), the man directly responsible for the creation of the machines; or destroy Skynet, the massive computer, now in its infancy, which will one day control the world. Even now, nine years after its release, the special effects in James Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" are astounding. In honor of its recent re-release on DVD, I've decided to write a review for this classic film.

This was a film released just at the end of the really special special effects era. Back when we could still be dazzled by what was on screen. Now it's grown quite impossible to do that. After all, most people weren't particularly impressed by the latest "Star Wars" film, and that featured some of the most dazzling effects ever. Still, because it was released when it was, people will always remember spectacular shots of the T-1000 reassembling itself after Arnold blasts it into a million pieces, or turning into liquid, squeezing through a window, and changing back to human form.

These are the kind of astounding scenes that, if released today, would be viewed as nothing new. Is that a testament to how far we've come, or to how much we've come to expect from our movies? End of philosophical moment. "Terminator 2" is a Schwarzenegger movie, through and through. It hides behind a fairly intelligent plot, but when Arnold gets lines like "Hasta la vista, baby," you know what kind of movie this is. If you're not a fan of Arnold, in all his cheesy glory, stay away from this movie. Otherwise, you'll love seeing him in his prime.

Robert Patrick gives a remarkably good turn as the T-1000, but he's no Arnold (as if you needed to be told that). Linda Hamilton plays Sarah Connor more than a little differently this time around. In the first film Sarah was obviously confused by what was happening. In this one she's so prepared it's almost frightening. She has hidden gun caches, training in the use of every weapon imaginable, an insanely high tolerance for pain, and a mean streak that would scare Hannibal Lecter. Finally, we have newcomer (at the time) Edward Furlong.

He actually gave a fairly good performance for a first time actor, only overdoing it on the emotion every now and then. I'm not sure if this is a sign of real acting talent from Furlong, or directorial ability from Cameron (back before he sold out to the man and made "Titanic"). Whatever it was, I've been sorry to see Furlong wasted on useless movies since his debut ("Detroit Rock City", anyone?). I have only one major complaint with "Terminator 2", but it's a doozy. In the first "Terminator" film, the story revolved entirely around Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese trying to escape the killing machine.

There was nothing that could stop it, nothing that could slow it down. It just kept coming and coming. This filled that movie with a wonderful sense of dread and foreboding, as we watched our heroes try in vain to stop their enemy. In "Terminator 2", the story shifts drastically. It's no longer about trying to escape the terminator, this one is about trying to stop Skynet and change the future. Now I know they couldn't make this movie about the exact same thing as the first one, but I think if you compare the two the first script is superior.

That's not to say this one is bad, it's just not as dark, twisted, and (frankly) entertaining as its predecessor. Through most segments of this movie, all I could think about was wanting the T-1000 to come back on screen. I really didn't care about a computer factory being destroyed. Special effects aside, there are a few other really great things about "Terminator 2". The action scenes are marvelously shot, both gun fights and the hand to hand combats. There are two really well done car chases in the film: one involving John Connor on a motorcycle and the T-1000 in a semi; the other involving a helicopter and a police van.

Both these chase scenes do a great job building suspense, and Cameron knows exactly when to call them to a halt. The film's score, by composer Brad Fiedel ("True Lies") is simply perfect. It uses a lot of the same music he created for the first film, but it sounds more metallic and machine like this time around.

The film does run a long 137 minutes (152 for the director's cut), but the action seldom lets up and it shouldn't feel half that long. I'd recommend "Terminator 2" to those who enjoyed the first one, and to fans of science fiction in general. I wouldn't recommend it to those looking for a movie about time travel because Cameron generally ignores all the traditional arguments regarding paradoxes and such (rightfully so, I might add).

The Forces of Good Seek Peace, Violently
By Janet Maslin

July 3, 1991 - Using his imagination and not much more, James Cameron devised "The Terminator," the lean, mean 1984 action film that became a classic of apocalypse-minded science fiction. What this meant, in keeping with inexorable Hollywood logic, was that Mr. Cameron would become a prime candidate for sequel sickness. He would be able to follow up his original shoestring hit with a second installment whose budget is reportedly somewhere near the $100 million mark. That figure suggests at the very least a typographical error, not to mention mistakes of a more serious kind.

Surprise. Mr. Cameron has made a swift, exciting special-effects epic that thoroughly justifies its vast expense and greatly improves upon the first film's potent but rudimentary visual style. He has also broadened his initial idea to encompass better developed characters (after all, the first Terminator was barely verbal), a livelier wit and a more ambitious, if nuttier, message. A cautionary tale, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" anticipates nuclear disaster in the year 1997 unless there is intervention from the forces of good, who happen to specialize in shootouts, clubbings, slammings, poundings and explosions.

This tirelessly violent, ultimately exhausting film has the utter sincerity of all good science fiction, and a lot more flair than most, but it suffers from a certain confusion of purpose. In the end, it amounts to quite the pistol-packing plea for peace. Back again is Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who learned in "The Terminator" that she would some day be the mother of John Connor, a revolutionary hero in the year 2029. The first Terminator, a human-looking automaton created by all-powerful machines of the future, traveled back through time to try to prevent Sarah from living long enough to have a child.

But as the new film begins, Sarah is already the mother of John (Edward Furlong), a feisty pre-teen-ager who has been brought up in foster care while Sarah was in a psychiatric hospital ("The delusional architecture is fairly unique," says a doctor who has studied Sarah's ravings, and whom Sarah has stabbed in the kneecap). This time two different Terminators have been sent back to do battle over whether Sarah and John survive into the future. The first of these, known only as the Terminator, is familiar on two scores.

At first, he has the same blank, scary demeanor that convinced the earlier film's audiences that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who continues to shine in this role, was better suited to playing a pitiless villain than a camp counselor. Later on, Mr. Schwarzenegger's Terminator develops a gruff and winning kindliness that brings to mind John Wayne, although Mr. Wayne would no doubt have been confounded by T-1000 (Robert Patrick), the rival Terminator who is the film's futuristic villain.

Expanding upon the mutable-blob effect he used in "The Abyss," Mr. Cameron presents T-1000 as a showstopping molten metal creature capable of assuming or abandoning human form at will. Some of his tricks -- like rising up out of a checkerboard-tiled floor and evolving into a steely eyed police officer without skipping a beat -- are cause for applause in their own right. Although this fast-paced sequel locks the Terminator and T-1000 into an extended gladiatorial duel over the fate of Sarah and her son, Sarah looks like more than a match for both of them.

Vicious and feral, showing off a bodybuilder's phenomenal muscle tone, Sarah says more about Mr. Cameron's taste for ferocious heroines (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was no less abrasive in "The Abyss") than for the future state of women warriors. The film is occasionally capable of levity at Sarah's expense, as when her son tells her to lighten up after one particularly feverish tirade, but for the most part it treats her reverently. Sarah's voice-over narration -- "The future, always so clear to me, had become like a black highway at night" -- could have been terminated with no loss.

Mr. Cameron, whose direction at its best has a Kubrick-like reverberant chill, only rarely lapses into such melodramatic excess. Much of "Terminator 2," especially during its gripping first hour, is taken up with tight, bravura sequences like an extended two-Terminator chase through Los Angeles, or the nuclear nightmare in which that city is incinerated before the audience's eyes. Only later, as the fireworks become overpowering, does the film's essential craziness make itself clear.

Sarah becomes racked with guilt over her attack on the family of a computer executive (Joe Morton), but not before she has fired about 500 rounds of ammunition into their living room. The Terminator, promising John that he won't kill anyone, contents himself with round after round of supposedly harmless explosions instead. The violence perpetrated by these characters means to be both constructive and exploitative, and as such it winds up thoroughly muddled. This much is clear: With friends like the Terminator, no one will ever need enemies.

Perhaps in a spirit of detente, Mr. Cameron (who wrote the screenplay with William Wisher) limits the story's weaponry mostly to guns, providing no technology on a par with the Terminators themselves. But this makes for inconsistencies and repetition, since the T-1000 can heal himself, albeit rather spectacularly, any time he springs a leak. It takes special tricks -- like the one whereby the Terminator reduces T-1000 to brittle fragments that become liquid blobs and then reassemble and rise again -- to cope with such a special fellow.

Also notable about "Terminator 2" are Mr. Schwarzenegger's perfect aplomb, Brad Fiedel's ominous music, Mr. Furlong's fine, scrappy performance as the story's young hero, Ms. Hamilton's wild-eyed combativeness and the film's apt casting of Mr. Morton as a successful computer entrepreneur on whose decisions the future depends. "It's not every day that you find out you're responsible for three billion deaths!" he exclaims, late in the story. This, in the feverish atmosphere of "Terminator 2," is what passes for a sober moment.

Movie-Gazette: Laced with dark humour

Those terminators certainly are persistent. Almost a decade after failing to wipe out frizzy-haired waitress Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) by sending a seemingly unstoppable cyborg back in time to do the deed, those meddlesome machines are at it again. With Sarah now locked in the loony bin, her transformation into a muscle-bound mentalist well underway, the target this time is John Connor himself (Edward Furlong). We learned from “The Terminator” that John is the street-smart freedom fighter destined to lead mankind to victory over the machines. What the original movie didn't teach us is that he's also a bit of a git.

So back from the future to kill him comes the shape-shifting T-1000, a super-advanced man-bot in the shape of Robert Patrick in a policeman's uniform. That leaves Arnold Schwarzenegger to turn protector, having been re-programmed to defend the young John from the T-1000 at all costs. And, yet again, he makes his entrance completely starkers. Well, it's not as if anyone's going to be brave enough to laugh at him, so he might as well have a bit of fun.

Though from the same director, and much of the same cast and writers, “Terminator 2? is a vastly different movie from the 1984 original. Apart from the obvious character changes (Hamilton is barely recognizable from the first time around and Arnie's turned into a good guy with a neat line in quips), this sequel is laced with dark humour. There's also a strong underlying message about the value of human life, to the extent that even the apparently emotionless Terminator appears to learn sensibility (”now I know why you cry”).

But it's the special effects that remain the most awe-inspiring aspect of the film. With a budget of over $90 million, at the time of release it was the most expensive movie ever made – and it shows. Aside from the usual array of explosions, shoot-outs and high-speed chases, it's the liquid-metal transformations of the T-1000 that still impress the most. It's Got: A Terminator who’s not quite caring and sharing, but he’s getting there. He’s even good with children! Well, sort of. It Needs: Your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.

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