Over Produced and Over Rated Sequel

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2002)

That`s typical . Hollywood decides to make lots of money by making a sequel to a classic genre film while ignoring the elements that made the original so brilliant.
Take the script for example , THE TERMINATOR had one of the most tightly written scripts I can think of . The sequel is very flabby and mechanical especially in the middle where the fugitives escape to the desert. On top of that it`s very poor SF , if ten years have passed since the first film then that also means that ten years have passed in the future but as the original pointed out Cyberdyne systems had been beaten by the humans so how could they send another , superior terminator back to 1994 ?
THE TERMINATOR worked so well because it was well made and written , not because it had an army of stuntmen or FX wizards. This seems to have slipped the producers memories. Here we are treated to explosions , stunts, FX , car chases ,FX , explosions , helicopter chases , FX , explosions, FX, more explosions and a nuclear war featuring - you`ve guessed it - FX and explosions. The morphing FX might have been groundbreaking in 1991 but two years later every pop video , advert and TV title sequence had done the effect to death which means in a space of four or five years T2 looked extremely dated .
My final gripe is down to the dubious morality of it all. Big Arnie goes around blowing the kneecaps off a whole SWAT team . Is it really necessary for him to do this ? I mean he is a terminator so bullets can`t hurt him so why`s he dishing out maimings ?
I see there`s a TERMINATOR 3 in the pipeline. I predict it`ll be the biggest flop in years