A Sequel that Measures Up to the First Movie

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2011)

Imagine a sequel that is almost as good as the first original movie, or even better. That's not very easy to do. Most sequels are terrible, made only to bank on the original movie's ideas without introducing anything new.
T2 Judgment Day is not an original movie because of its plot, or its idea but it is actually groundbreaking in terms of special effects. I do not like movies that rely on special effects alone for its appeal. There must be more to a movie than just special effects. And T2 delivers it.
T2 is a special movie: This is, I believe, the first time CGI was used. Prior to T2, you could easily make out the image that was pasted to the film. The graphic image would stick out like a sore thumb, its contour easily traceable by naked eye.
With T2, CGI (computer generated imagery) technique has evolved to such a level that creating any image and adding it to the film became possible. And this is done so well, there is really no way of telling it apart from the original film like you could do in movies prior to T2. Contour lines are no longer visible, they are much smoother and blend with the original film.
As for the story, it is almost the repeat to the original movie and there are many parallel scenes. Again two characters fighting each other for the fate of Sarah O'Connor, wait, this time for John O'Connor (Sarah's son); that is one main difference. So we have a new character added to the story. We have a more sophisticated terminator, T1000, the indestructible liquid man - thanks to CGI effects. We get to see the character who is responsible for building the micro-processor that gave birth to SKYNET, the evil mainframe that declared war on humanity.
One thing I would like to emphasize is the performance of Robert Patrick, the actor who portrays T1000. His acting is simply fascinating and, in my opinion, is the reason why this movie works so well. A lot of the people are impresses by the CGI, rightfully so, and forget to give credit where its due. Robert Patrick brought T1000 alive. Without his impeccable performance, the movie would fall flat, even CGI couldn't save the movie. His brute looks, his robotic but finely-tuned moves, his cunning ways were just what this movie needed.
After T2, there were two more franchise movies, T3-The Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation.