Buff Linda Hamilton Continued the Fight for the Future in Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Written: Jan 16 '09 (Updated May 21 '09)
Product Rating:
Pros: Entertaining movie with well done effects.
Cons: Could be too violent for some viewers.
The Bottom Line: Terminator 2: Judgement Day was a well done action movie that deserves to be seen. People that enjoyed the first movie should give this one a chance.
dragonfire88's Full Review: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Sometimes, several years pass before a sequel is made. That was the case with Terminator 2: Judgement Day, which came out seven years after The Terminator.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day picked up about ten years after the events of The Terminator. There wasn't an official recap of what happened in the first movie, but things that happened during that movie were mentioned. Certain things will make more sense if the movies were watched in order.
In The Terminator, a cyborg called a Terminator was sent back in time from 2029 to kill Sarah Connor before she could have the son - John - who would become the future leader of the resistance against Skynet's machines. John in 2029 found out about the Terminator being sent back and sent Kyle Reese, one of the resistance fighters, back to protect Sarah. She survived and John was born nine months later.
Skynet had not given up on the idea of getting rid of John. This time it sent back a new model, the T-1000, when John was only ten years old. He was living with a foster family at the time because Sarah had been committed after being arrested for trying to destroy a computer company. Once again John in 2029 was able to send back a protector, this time a reprogrammed Terminator model that looked like the one that had tried to kill Sarah ten years before. John realized right away what the Terminator was because of what Sarah had told him.
John was able to give the Terminator orders, so they went to get Sarah. She panicked at first before John explained that this Terminator was there to help them. She was skeptical about trusting the cyborg, but she realized that she and John needed his help. She ultimately decided that she needed to do something drastic to prevent Skynet from being created.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day built on what had been established in The Terminator even though ten years had passed since the end of the first movie. Sarah had learned about the future from Kyle and that greatly influenced the way she was living her life. She was determined to protect John and prepare him to his future. From things said in the movie, John was ten when the movie was taking place, so it would have been set in 1994 or 1995. There have been some inconsistencies with that since the movie came out. In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, John talked about the T-1000 going after him when he was thirteen. John did look older than ten in this movie, but I don't know if that is why the age was changed later. In 2008, a television show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, started to air. It started off set in 1999. The events from the second movie were mentioned as having happened two years before. So there are some issues with the actual time line of events that could bother some viewers.
When Terminator 2: Judgment Day started, Sarah was in a mental hospital and John was living with a foster family. Before she'd been committed, Sarah had been trying to teach John everything she thought he would need to know to lead the resistance in the future. After she was committed, John had doubts about what she'd told him and he didn't seem to care that much about her at that point. All that changed once the Terminator and the T-1000 turned up. After that happened, John realized that his mom had been telling the truth about everything. He did seem to be having a little bit of trouble accepting his future destiny. I did think it was interesting to see John as a child and how knowing about the future impacted him.
There was a lot of action and violence throughout Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I think this movie had more action and violence than the first one. I didn't think anything that happened was overly graphic, but it will be too violent for some viewers. Several people were shown to be hurt or injured in some way. John didn't like the idea of killing, so he ordered the Terminator not to kill anyone. The T-1000 didn't have those reservations and he was killing just about everyone he came into contact with. Several characters used profanity throughout the movie, including the word that rhymes with luck. The language and violence caused the movie to be rated R. This is definitely not a movie for children.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day featured a lot of special effects throughout the movie. Most of them were somehow connected to the T-1000 and the unique way he moved and morphed into other things. The T-1000 was able to do that because he was made of liquid metal. It was really cool how he was able to change shapes and basically look like anyone he had touched. I remember being really blown away by that when I first saw the movie. I still think it looks good, so the effects have held up very well. Some of what was done with the character, how he would move in the liquid metal form, was sort of like something that had been done in The Abyss. Many of the effects were created with CGI, though other things, including puppets and miniatures, were also used. The effects worked really well for the movie overall and have held up very well.
Sarah was completely changed from how she had been during the first movie. During that one, she was basically a care free young woman who quickly had her life turned upside down by bizarre events. She made the decision to turn herself into a fighter and to teach John everything she could that could help him as an adult. She had gotten herself into really good shape and was a good fighter even though she'd been stuck in a mental hospital. At one point, it was said that Sarah was 29, so she would have been 19 when John was born. I honestly don't remember her age being mentioned in the first movie and I hadn't thought she was that young. Linda Hamilton was very good in the part and she had some impressive arm muscles.
John knew that he was supposed to become the future leader of the resistance, but he did seem to have some issues with that responsibility at times. He was running a bit wild when the movie started, and he didn't seem to like his foster parents that much. He did have a bit of an attitude at times and he'd already gotten into trouble with the police. Edward Furlong was fine in the part, but nothing special.
Somehow John in 2029 was able to get an older Terminator model that he reprogrammed to send back in time. The Terminator was very focused on protecting John and didn't get irritated by John's questions or how he talked a lot at times. The Terminator was able to learn because of the type of CPU he had, so John taught him different things. Arnold Schwarzenegger handled the part well. He ended up with more lines in this one.
The T-1000 was a new model of Terminator that had more abilities and was harder to kill. He was just as determined to kill John as the original Terminator had been to kill Sarah in the first movie. When he wasn't looking like another character, the T-1000 appeared as a police officer. He didn't have many lines. I did like Robert Patrick in the part. He didn't look as intimidating as Arnold, but the T-1000 was just as tough as Arnold's Terminator. Patrick had this look that worked perfectly for the character and made him really believable as a cyborg killing machine.
Dr. Silberman, the doctor who talked to Kyle during the first movie and was convinced that he had mental problems was back. He was in charge of Sarah's care in the mental hospital. He was very clear that he really didn't care about her health or mental well being. He saw her as a way to make his career, so he was content to keep her locked up for the rest of her life. I think it was very clear that he never had any intention of letting Sarah out or even moving her to a minimum security area. He was smarmy and nasty and not a nice character at all. I did enjoy his reaction once the T-1000 turned up at the hospital though. Earl Boen was good in the part.
Miles Dyson was a man working for Cyberdine who was working on new computer technology. He was involved because Sarah decided that his work was going to lead to the creation of Skynet. Miles tended to be wrapped up in his work. He wasn't in many scenes, so Joe Morton didn't have a lot to do.
Main Cast
Earl Boen - Dr. Silberman Edward Furlong - John Connor Linda Hamilton - Sarah Connor Robert Patrick - T-1000 Arnold Schwarzenegger - Terminator
James Cameron - Director
DVD Information
I picked up the Extreme DVD version of Terminator 2: Judgment Day on DVD. I think there have been some other DVD versions as well. My version has the widescreen version of the movie. There are sixteen extra minutes, so there were a few new scenes. They were interesting, though not extremely important. One of those scenes did provide a strong connection back to the first movie. There is a commentary with Cameron and an interactive mode with graphic commentary that will let people access some behind the scenes footage while watching the movie. There are two short featurettes on the making of the movie on the second disc and several things that can only be accessed by putting the disc in a CD-ROM drive.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day worked very well as an action movie and as a science fiction movie. People that enjoyed the first movie should definitely check this one out. Fans of the cast may also enjoy it, though it isn't a movie that will appeal to everyone.
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