More Than Just Action

Rating: 10/10 (24 September 2000)

When this movie came out at the theatres, I was 15. I thought it was cool. I'm 24 now and I see this movie in a completely different light. I don't doubt that the movie has amazing special effects that makes the movie quite watchable if you just want to vegatate for a couple of hours. I don't doubt that there might be a few plot holes and discontinuity in the time travel aspect of the story. This is something I have yet to figure out. But after watching this movie a few times and reading critical reviews of the movie, I've come to this current opinion. If you bother to think about this movie beyond the great special effects, you might find that it has more to offer than the cool F/X. James Cameron is a very critical and detail oriented director. If you are familiar with his work at all, you will see an emerging theme in all of his movies. I believe that theme is humanity vs. technology. (THE ABYSS, TITANIC, ALIENS) In any case, the characters are an INTEGRAL part of the story and not simply the platform in which the action takes place. Compare this movie to say, practically any Jerry Bruckheimer movie. (Gone in Sixty Seconds anyone?) James Cameron thinks about his characters first before he can imagine the situation in which they may reasonably be confronted with. James Cameron says himself that the intent of the movie was to make people feel for a robot, to cry for him, and not simply to be blown away by the action taking place within the context of the characters and the story.
With this in mind, I see this movie as first and foremost, a human story. The whole premise of this story is the fight for humankind. Humans vs. Machines. I mentioned Cameron's theme earlier: humanity vs. technology. In this movie, the more technologically advanced we become, the more inhuman we are. Witness this as Sarah Conner becomes more of a terminator herself in her willingness to kill Miles Dyson. She does not question morally or ethically about why she is killing him. She is just going to do it. Before she does it though, she has an epiphany and she realizes exactly what she has become. It is shattering to her. There is such a moral fabric throughout this story voiced by our future hero: "You can't kill people!!!" And later on, "Don't you get it?! Don't you understand why you can't kill people? Because we hurt, we feel pain, we're afraid..." It is not surprising that John has such a strong moral fabric. After all, he is going to become a great leader someday. Ironically, it is his teachings to the terminator and the resetting of the CPU that makes the terminator more human. In the end, he becomes half-human and he realizes his half-humanity. "I know now why you cry... but it is something that I can never do." It makes his sacrifice even more greater. A hero is defined as someone who sacrifices himself for a greater good, something greater than even his own existence. Although the terminator could have stayed, he chose to go. In this movie, he is a true hero. Cameron chose to have this strong moral issue in the film... he did not want Arnold as the good robot killing everything in his way- which he could have easily done. After all, he is a terminator. He chose to weave this moral fabric into the story which I think many people easily overlook. The terminator teaches us a lot about ourselves too. This is a very spiritual aspect of the film. John says to the terminator, "we're not going to make it, are me? People, I mean..." to which the terminator replies, "It is in your nature to destroy yourselves...." It makes the theme and message of the whole movie even more meaningful. The theme of the movie can best be summed up by Sarah Conner, "If a machine,a terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too." It took something as inhuman as the terminator to teach us something very human about ourselves: loyalty, love, fear, sacrifice, and hope. So before you write T2 off as just another action movie, I challenge you to watch it critically. This movie is about destiny vs. free will, (how much control over our future do we have? as john says, "there is no fate but what we make of it ourselves.") and as I've said before, really about being human in such a technologically run world. Watch as Sarah fights to protect her son, watch as john just desperately wants his mother to embrace him and love him. Observe the quiet moments of contemplation and rest in this movie. This movie is not perfect as no movie is but as an action movie, it certainly provides a lot more than a two hour adrenaline rush.