Terminator is back, yet again! Is this movie worth watching? Yes, indeed!

Rating: 9/10 (10 June 2016)

Continuing the story of the first film, 1984's 'Terminator'; 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' finds a new Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from the first movie, having now to protect her young son, John Connor (Edward Furlong), from a more advanced cyborg, T-1000 (Robert Patrick) made out of liquid metal. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I love how nightmarish, the opening was, with its heaven and hell motif. The burning playground, with it symbolize the four horsemen of apocalypse made it, very scary. The scenery ends with the T-800 Terminator endoskeleton, symbolizing a chrome figure of death. Wow, intense. Directed by James Cameron, the film is designed in such way that the audience doesn't know which of the time travelers might be the good guy at first. Not only that, T2 conquered one of the biggest challenges in storytelling ever - to completely spin the audience's emotions on the character and turn the most ruthless killer into a sympathetic father figure. Arnold really did great, showing that with Cameron's help. The sunglasses are an important story device in T2. In the first movie they meant to dehumanize T-800 as he takes on more damage, becoming less and less human-like in appearance. In T2, the meaning of the sunglasses has an even deeper meaning as it represent his gradual transformation, from stone-cold killer, to something more human. Because of things like that, the movie carry a strong moral message. The fact that the Terminator was ordered not to kill people becomes a major point of the story as it really deliver the relationship, he has with the young John Conner. Both actors did well in their roles, showing their humanity. Linda Hamilton does the opposite, as she turn her character from a scared, vulnerable waitress into a tough, aggressive machine-like assassin with a muscular physique to match. It's the startling physical transformation that adds a whole other level of psychological credibility to Sarah's character. The way the movie is shot and the story and angles constructed, makes this, a well-executed, action-packed sequel to 'Terminator'. It has a great variety of action set-pieces, car chases and quotable one-liners to make anybody, entertained. Because of things like that, Terminator 2 still remains one of the best action films of all time! Not only that, but it's also one of the most influential sequels in Hollywood blockbuster history. It's nearly a perfect blockbuster movie. However, the movie does have flaws that other critics might overlook, because of nostalgia reasons. First off, the indifferences of Edward Furlong's age between shots. Since, the filming of this film, took some sufficiently time, in many of the scenes, Furlong has indeed visibly aged, despite, the whole film events, happening in a few days. It's clear that he was much younger, when they film the desert scenes, compare to the others. You can see it, when his voice began to break and had to be pitched to one level in post-production. Despite that, Furlong did alright in the role, and wasn't that annoying. Another issue with the film, is how dated, it is. After all, the film's significant date known as "Judgment Day", is August 29 1997. It's a bit laughable, seeing that. Even the 1990s references, are starting to lose some traction, with every year that pass. One jarring thing, that some people might notice, is how Terminators don't really act like machines. You know, for killer cyborgs, they really do suck at their jobs. Isn't there, supposed to be a technological singularity, where humans can't compete with the machine? So, why does this movie have scenes, where machines are doing stupid things, like cooking dinner or asking people to call out, names? It doesn't make sense for them, too. Like, how did T-1000, time travel since only living tissue can go through time and he's liquid metal? Despite those nitpicking, the biggest fault of the film is the troublesome and convoluted timeline. While, Terminator 2 is probably the cleanness of all of the films, the movie's ending is a mixed bag for me. I get that, the key message of T2 is that, if events in the past are altered, an already existing future or present can be changed. However, if Judgment Day were prevented, as shown in the film, then there'd shouldn't been no Future War – and no Terminator sent back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, meaning no Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) to father, John Connor. I guess, paradoxes can be avoided, by appealing either to the Novikov self-consistency principle or to the notion of branching parallel universes, similar to some type of multiverse theory, but my brain kinda hurt thinking too hard on it. As much as I dislike 2003's 'Terminator 3', as least, the inevitable type ending, made a lot more sense than 'Terminator 2', open-ended climax. Don't get me wrong, I like this movie's open road bittersweet ending. It will make you cry & yes, it is way better than the original altered ending, and 3 times, better than anything else in the previous 'Terminator' films, I saw, but it does leave too much open-questions on how time travel works. Anyways, the great quality of the film, surpass any of the flaws, the film may have. After all, this is the film that made CGI effects seem pleasant. Along, with Robert Patrick wonderful acting, the CGI effects made the T-1000, an iconic villain. Even, the normal practical effects, from Stan Winston was amazing. Terminator 2 even works with wondering haunting theme song from Brad Fiedel. Overall: The movie is masterpiece. The ideas of fate and destiny, determinism and fee will, and the empowerment of the individual and the ability of every person to change the course of the future makes this movie so great. This movie has a lot of depth that few action/science fiction films come compete with, because of that, it's a must-watch.