"I'll Be Back." Good!

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2014)

The Terminator is a fine film, although it feels relatively small at times. However, Terminator 2 Judgement Day completely expands the story and James Cameron crafts one of the best sequels ever made. Many years after the first film Sarah Connor is in an asylum and her son has been put into care. A far more advanced cyborg comes back to kill John Connor, while an reprogrammed terminator from the first film comes back to save John and Sarah. With a much higher budget and bigger scope, this certainly does what a sequel is meant to do. James Cameron is a director I admire but not someone who's films I automatically go and see as his films can feel somewhat cold, but this doesn't waste a dollar of its $100 million budget. James Cameron's direction offers mind blowing visuals and exhilarating action spectacle throughout, as the endlessly entertaining action scenes and surprisingly deep script leave most other sequels in the gutter. The action sequences sometimes seem to devolve as they go along, and John Connor is an annoying child sidekick, but the film achieves most of its goals in stunning style.
The film is amazingly made and the thrills are utterly spell binding, but there's curious depth to the film as well. The relationship between the terminator and John Connor is strangely touching and Sarah Connor is an excellent female action hero. The story is very interesting and has one of the most terrifying dream sequences I've ever seen in a film. Although the cold colouring of the film gives it a slightly artificial feel, there's enough humanity in there to make it nearly a great movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a very limited actor, but he's good at what he does and Linda Hamilton is excellent. It's also got a very good villain and the film crafts eye popping visuals all without CGI. T2 is better than the original since it's bigger, cooler and more thought provoking. It's not perfect, but in terms of superior thrills rendered with beautiful visual mastery backed up by a strong script, there are few better alternatives.
9/10