Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) should be what all action movie sequels aim to be. Some people say less is more;
James Cameron says more is more. With this sequel he pitted two terminators
against each other, turned Linda Hamilton into a heroine for the ages, and just
as he did with Aliens, he increased the scale of the action sequences by
10. On paper the concept for the Terminator films sounds like a low-grade B
movie: a robot from the future, played by an Austrian actor with the world’s
thickest accent, is sent to the past to kill the leader of the human resistance. What ended up on screen is a ground-breaking special effects bonanza that takes
viewers on an epic adventure.
This was a seminal 90s movie, so of course my brother
and I ended up owning a copy on VHS, which had repeated viewings. Some of the
action scenes were probably too graphic for my age at the time, but I’m not complaining.
Whenever I feel today’s action movies have too many G-rated gunfights with
superheroes, I go to T2 to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. Plus, it
introduced us to George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone as the Terminator walks
out of a biker bar clad in a leather jacket, sporting sunglasses and armed with
a shotgun. Ironic, since this time he’s the good guy.
The plot is in a way the same as with every other
Terminator movies: in the future an artificial intelligence takes over the
world, humans fight back, and the machines send a killer robot back in time to
kill their leader. If you think about that for just one minute none of it makes
sense. If the robots change the past then they create a future where there is
no need for them to send a robot to the past, meaning they never sent a robot,
meaning…that I’m glad there is no such thing as time travel because this mess
is complicated. Time logic aside, this is the story of a boy with a huge
destiny ahead of him who is being hunted and protected by two different killer robots.
In The Terminator, Schwarzenegger portrayed a
monosyllabic killing machine masquerading as a human being while hunting Sarah
Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of the future resistance leader. At times
he was like Michael Myers from the Halloween franchise: seemingly
indestructible and always calmly walking towards his victims. For the sequel Schwarzenegger
has a lot more acting to do since this time he plays a terminator that has been
reprogrammed to protect, not kill. Young John Connor (Edward Furlong) also tries to
teach him the importance of preserving life, of having fun, and how to blend in
with humanity by saying cool things such as “hasta la vista, baby.” That was a
cool phrase in the 90s, especially after Arnold said it.
If a nearly indestructible robot is the protector, then
the antagonist needs to be an even more formidable force. The filmmakers
certainly achieved that with the T-1000, a robot made of liquid metal, that can
take the shape of anyone or anything. Played by Robert Patrick, who is much
less physically imposing than Schwarzenegger, this new terminator is the stuff
of nightmares. Shotgun shells only leave momentary craters in its chest, it can
run as fast as a car, and can turn its hands into ten-inch blades. This monster was a
huge step forward in the world of computer-generated images, such as in
scenes when it changes skins, emergences from an explosion, or is temporarily blown
to bits after being frozen by nitrogen.
The computer effects were groundbreaking back then, but
the practical effects are just as memorable today. This movie has some of the
most impressive action sequences ever shot, from a motorcycle chase in the Los
Angeles water reservoir to a standoff between the Terminator and an entire
police department at a computer factory. In most of these sequences we are
seeing real cars exploding, stunt performers driving the vehicles, and when
people get shot it feels raw because we are seeing actual liquid ooze out of the wounds.
Despite all the testosterone, one of the movie’s
biggest accomplishments is the creation of the best action heroine since Ellen
Ripley in Aliens. In the first movie Linda Hamilton was playing a
waitress caught in an extraordinary situation, constantly reacting in fear,
or running for her life. Here she is a mother with a mission to protect both her son
and the future of humanity. Consequently, she has transformed her body to be
able to face whatever danger the machines throw at her, has become adept at
using weapons, and has the courage to run towards danger. Yet she is still
human, suffering from graphic nightmares of a possible nuclear apocalypse, and
rightfully hesitates to pull the trigger when she is aiming her gun at an
unarmed man.
Over 30 years later and this movie still holds up thanks to Hamilton's performance, Schwarzenegger's imposing presence, and the right balance between stunt work and computer effects. It also remains the best installment in a franchise that spawned five movies and a TV spin-off. It turns out the terminator only needed to say “I’ll be back” twice and that would have been enough.
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