A movie for people who say "awesome" a lot....

Rating: 1/10 (10 March 1999)

Let's make it clear - the special effects in this movie are pretty good, and it's as well made as Hollywood actioners get. But am I the only one who despises the way the film is blatantly aimed at the type of people who describe things as "awesome" or "kick-ass"?
James Cameron is a very clever man, not for his movie-making qualities (of which we'll get to later!) but for his knowing of a sure thing when he sees one. The first Terminator had a fraction of the budget, and a very much lesser-known star at the time, and it managed to create a convincingly dark and menacing bad guy, and a pretty tight action thriller.
T2, however, has seen Mr Cameron simply throw together a whole pile of things that will appeal to the comic-book generation - big guns, throbbing motorbikes, and the kind of silly set-pieces that are designed purely to whoop up an audience which has few demands. I'm not expecting an intellectual feast when I watch a movie like this, but I at least hope that the director won't patronise me by cobbling these stock elements together, adding some risible dialogue and pretending it is a complete film.
And how wholly predictable that we have Arnie in the good guy role this time, further sealing the commercial certainty of this film. Every aspect of the movie seems tailored to bring in as much money as possible, from the aforementioned comic-book elements, to the awful product placement - witness the technician who comes into a room awkwardly carrying a well-known brand of cola, label to the camera, and the same brand-name on a prominent vending machine in a corridor shoot-out.
Ever since the travesty that was ALIENS, James Cameron has been putting together garish films like this which simply do not appeal to me. He may be a competent director, but he is no master of character or originality, favouring instead the kind of technical accomplishment or macho nonsense (and, let's face it, his female characters are males in all but name) that appeals to young, male Americans. It leaves me cold, and it makes me mad, when he, and his fans, try to convince me otherwise.