TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY

(July 1991, U.S.)

A sequel to THE TERMINATOR (1984) was a total shock to me. For starters, I saw no conceivable way for the story of James Cameron's fantastic sci-fi-action thriller to continue. I mean, the Terminator was destroyed, Sarah Connor's unborn child was going to live and it looked like mankind's future had been saved from destruction and war. Furthermore, there was no internet or social media back in 1991. At best, if you wanted to keep up with what was new and exciting in the world of entertainment, you had to watch ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT on CBS, which I didn't. So when I saw a full page ad of Arnold Schwarzenegger riding a motorcycle and carrying a rifle in the New York Times Arts & Leisure section advertising the new sequel, my immediate reaction was, "When the hell did this happen?" I was skeptical, of course. But when I noticed that it was also directed by Cameron, who by now, had thrilled the world since THE TERMINATOR with ALIENS, I figured that, perhaps, it would be worth a look.

Worth a look? If ever there were three more understated words in the English language when pertaining to movie, these were it! From the moment the movie opened with a spectacular, futuristic war taking place on the grounds of Los Angeles in the year 2029, I was hooked. In fact, when I saw this awesome shot on the big screen in front of me...

...my immediate wonder was if they sold a poster in stores of this exact image. Oh, how great this would have looked on my college dorm wall (today, it would simply make a great computer screen saver).

The time is the not-too-distant future when John Connor (played by Edward Furlong) is now ten years-old (ten? Looks more like twelve to me), so figure the year is 1995. John is a troubled and delinquent kid living with foster parents because his own mother Sarah Connor (played again by Linda Hamilton) got herself locked up in a mental institution when she tried to blow up a computer lab while preparing her son for his future role as the leader of the Human Resistance against Skynet, the artificial intelligence entity with control over the United States nuclear missiles and the initiator of the nuclear holocaust called "Judgment Day" that Sarah already knows will take place on August 29, 1997. Of course, she's considered insane and no one will believe her prophecies, including her own son.

Like the first movie, Skynet of the future sends another Terminator (played by Robert Patrick), the advances T-1000 prototype comprised of liquid metal, back in time to kill John as a child. This new Terminator coincides well with the new CGI moviemaking of the 1990s because it has the awesome ability to take on the shape and appearance of just about anything and anyone it touches, including the power to transform its arms into knives and other stabbing weapons. Arnold, this time, plays the Terminator charged with protecting young John Connor, programmed and sent back in time by John himself in the future. Together, John and the Terminator break Sarah out of her imprisonment and head for the road in order to escape the authorities and prevent "Judgment Day". While the T-1000 is constantly in pursuit, the action is hardcore and easily outsoars everything we were treated to back in 1984.

Along the way, we learn about our own future in a world where scientists and technicians of Skynet retrieved the mechanical CPU arm and computer chip of the first Terminator and used it to advance our technology that would inevitably lead us all to our "Judgment Day". But with the horrifying knowledge of the future also comes the power to potentially change it. In their race against time, Sarah, John, the Terminator and the man most responsible for our future, Miles Bennett Dyson (played by Joe Morton) are out to destroy everything (including the T-1000) that Skynet can use to destroy us. After some intense battle and combat action inside a steel mill, the T-1000 is destroyed in a vat of molten steel (sorry for the spoiler!) and the future appears saved, or at least it will be after the hero Terminator of the movie destroys itself, as well. Our lives can now feel a sense of hope...at least until they make three more damn TERMINATOR sequels!

Let me say right off the bat that TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY is still my favorite action movie of all time. Despite all the films of franchises like James Bond, STAR WARS, DIE HARD and the countless comic book superhero movies that have bombarded us since Tim Burton's BATMAN (1989), it's still James Cameron's hardcore version of what might become of our future in a world where machines think more and human beings think less that continues to take my breath away even after twenty-eight years. T2's thrilling and carefully staged action sequences and awesome, eye-popping visual effects are nothing short of a landmark achievement in the what was the future of filmmaking back in the early '90s. But more than action, there's an effective human quality to the film that also includes the depth of the cyborg characters. As the savior of the human race, it's Arnold (despite his lack of credibility as a true actor, in my opinion) as the machine, who while constantly learning about the human condition, realizes the importance and value of life. T2 inaugurates a new decade before the end of the century immediately following an era when action was simply limited to the mindless thunder and high-voltage of men like Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone. Perhaps we, like Cameron, were getting smarter and more discriminating about what we called good entertainment on the big screen. If we were, it certainly didn't last too long. Still, I'll take the legendary history of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY for everything it gave me when I was younger and everything it continues to give me today...on high definition Blu-Ray!

Thank you, James! Keep the great movies coming!

Favorite line or dialogue:

Sarah Connor (voice-over): "The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too."

It would seem that we can't!