Groundbreaking for its time -- a consummate action film

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2009)

It's almost unfair to write this review in 2009, a shocking 20 years since this film was put into production, where the future that James Cameron imagined is much closer than before and the effects he did with computers are now standard action techniques. Kids growing up from here on out watching "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" won't even have a sense of ground this film broke, and consequently their overall enjoyment of the film will be a bit less. I give this film 8/10 when it's deserving of more in the right context -- these kids might go lower.
But even the lowest of budgets can be better than a digital spectacle with a better story. "T2" has that story, brilliantly taking its iconic villain, The Terminator (Schwarzenegger) from the first film, and bringing him back as a good guy. Genius. This time he is sent back in time to protect a 10-year-old John Connor (Edward Furlong), son of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and leader of the humans in the future when the machines they create turn on them -- not kill him. That job is left to T-1000 (Robert Patrick), who is made of shape-shifting liquid metal. Today, that's nothing, but 20 years ago, T-1000 joined the ranks of Darth Vader on the villains list and there he still stays in the minds of many.
Much like 1984's "The Terminator," one guy from the future is good, the other bad, and both are engaged in the life of a human who is pivotal to the future. Wherever one goes, the other follows. The difference is that James Cameron has turned the weapons and explosives scale up to a 15 on a scale of 10. Hamilton, once an '80s party girl, is now an angry and muscular 35-year-old who goes crazy on people; Schwarzenegger's shotgun is now on the puny end of his arsenal.
James Cameron wows with the action. It sort of erases his attempt to tell a story about the differences between humans and robots through the relationship between John and the Terminator, but just about everything with a motor or a computer chip in it meets some sort of spark-flying combustible end.
Plus, it all looks better than the first. Cameron has much better models of Schwarzenegger to beat up and he weaves them in more cleverly. The make-up is also superior. Talk about a visual marvel for its time -- all the Oscars for various effects and make-up are certainly well- deserved. Cameron decides that an action movie about the future isn't worth making unless it breaks ground. It's hard to disagree with the man.
The acting could still be better, but believe it or not, I don't mean Schwarzenegger. He's actually much better now that he's got the English thing down -- or at least intelligible. Hamilton's Sarah is just too angry and a withered shell of her former self, which makes sense in the context of the story but makes her not too likable. Furlong, as young John, is kind of a whiny and obnoxious turd who desperately needs his voice to drop. Neither matter too much, however, because Terminator is super easy to root for ... and they're fighting to save the human race in the future, which is cool.
Nowadays it's sadly easy to shake-off explosions and action stunts in movies like it's been- there-done-that, but also in the age of the move to 3D and miraculous CGI, it shouldn't be hard for the movie-goer who appreciates today's groundbreaking technology to consider the same for a movie made 20 years ago.