"Even machines need love too"

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2000)

So speaks 'Ginger' from the original Terminator. 2001 will see both the tenth anniversary of the sequel, and, supposedly, the third film in the series. As a result I decided to dig out T2 and see how well it stands up nearly a decade later; watched in a straight run after the original. The 1984 film was made on a meagre budget of $6.4 million and made somewhere around the $50 million mark. This sequel had a $100 million budget and has so far earnt over $620 million. So it's clear where Hollywood would stand on the issue.
Disappointingly, the two don't complement each other at all. Somewhere between the two James Cameron had lost all sense of film-making in a flurry of allocated budgets, and Arnhuld had graduated to ad-libbing "I need a vacashun", with a hand-shaking, high-fiving Terminator that learns all about "family values". When the original was conceived, Arnold hadn't yet had his first big hit, (Predator), being nearer to Hercules Goes Bananas than True Lies. What happened to the egos of both in between is played out on screen, particularly the portentous monologues by Hamilton that are meant to be worthy and meaningful, but are more often unintentionally hilarious. This is a film, lest we forget, that climaxes with a "moral of the story". Did we all really like this kind of stuff at the beginning of the last decade?
The original is a vibrant, moody, psychological piece, where the ironically named night club "tech noir" acts as a telling counterpoint to the minimalist art nouveau. A film for adults, it featured healthy, but not gratuitous, sexual tone, and occasional usage of the f-word. The sequel is for teenage popcorn munchers. Swearing is toned down and sex is absent, forging a film that, in England at least, became a box-office friendly "15", as opposed to a restrictive "18" certificate. John Connor sports the t-shirt of a black rap group throughout the picture (Public Enemy), yet the music he plays on his scooter and the incidentals are there purely to capture the lucrative "white rock" audience. So this is a Terminator that emerges leather-clad to the "ironic" strains of "Bad to the Bone", while moronic action sequences are feebly contrasted with Dwight Yoakam and Guns n' Roses.
Was it always so bad? I certainly used to enjoy the overblown, overlong and overbearing "Judgement Day" a whole lot more. Yet where the original had night, this one has day, in full-blown comicbook Technicolor. While the first movie had some of Cameron's trademark contrivance and overstated imagery (particularly the constant "machines in everyday life" allusions), it was someway from the boo-hiss English villainy and Oirish jig-dancing of Titanic. In fact, the low budget gives it its feel. Very much a product of the mid-80s, music by obscure-but-dated group "Tryanglz" plays, while mullet haircuts, frizzy bouffants and thin white ties can regularly be seen. The special effects may have dated (notably the back projections, Arnie's false head and the stop-motion exoskeleton), but the whole film is calculated for optimum-noir feel, so it doesn't really matter. Of course Arnold can't act, but that's irrelevant as he plays an expressionless cyborg. In the second film the cyborg gets feelings, and that does cause problems.
Formulaic, the second is basically a rehash of the first, complete with "bad Terminator commandeers a vehicle by saying 'get out' to the driver", HGV chase on a motorway and showdown in a machinery factory. That bad Terminator is Robert Patrick, a slight man who doesn't really stand a chance against the twin might of a pumped-up Sarah Connor and the T-800 (weightlifter model). The fact that the main protagonist is wholly absent for a middle section lasting 37 minutes also dissipates any growing sense of threat, something which was constant in the first movie. Just as well he's aided by those magnificent FX, probably the major reason to watch the film, but also the least credible segment. Mind you, the expensive FX can't hide the rather obvious dummy that hangs off the back of Arnie's car, then abruptly cuts to a Patrick close-up. Reminded me of Benny Hill. Even less effective is a (cut, thankfully) scene where his hand turns stripy, as it uncontrollably emulates his environment. This was, of course, the other big selling point of the film, where, two years later, a "director's cut" of reinstated cut scenes was released. Some moments, such as a morality debate over whether to smash the T-800's chip add nice touches to the plot. Others, like Arnie learning to smile, or a tritely-written dream sequence with Kyle, detract, and the film is stronger without their inclusion.
Moreover, the intellectual properties of the franchise are changed. The first was a warning against machinery, this one a far-less-subtle take on war. Rather hypocritical given the amount of screentime taken up by firepower. Dialogue is naive at best, banal at worst. Take this line from Furlong: "We have feelings, we hurt, we're afraid. You've gotta learn this stuff, I'm not kidding, it's important". Furlong, in fact, like all the actors in the movie, is encouraged to deliberately overplay his role, with a high-pitched characterisation that can be quite abrasive.

The Terminator is the work of a man-woman team. The testosterone-led Terminator 2 was written by two males. It shows. It lacks depth, clarity, subtlety, and any kind of genuine relationship or characterisation. Aliens to Terminator's Alien, the only sore point here is that Cameron is responsible for both and should have known better. But he didn't, and neither did we, and so we bought a silly film about a sinking ship upon ourselves. And Arnie as the Terminator? No-one bothers to tell the dumb shmoe that if he succeeds in their mission  to destroy all Cyberdyne chips, including his own, to stop the great machine war  that John Connor will never have needed to send his own father back in time and will consequently never exist...