Still impressive

Rating: 8/10 (4 April 2000)

Not only does James Cameron make a successful sequel, he manages to outdo the original and push the envelope of visual effects one step further. Giving us two Terminators for the price of one, Cameron has sent Arnold on a new mission. This time around, he's out to save the future, and his nemesis is the ever changing, very lethal, T-1000. The action is fast and furious and each sequence gets larger and more elaborate than the first one. Cars, trucks, motorcycles and every other type of vehicle you can think of get tossed through the air, blown up and shot up. But at the heart of all this visual mayhem, is a story that deals with relationships. There's the relationship between John Connor and the Terminator, and how the Terminator starts to grow into a surrogate father. Then there's the relationship between John and his mother, Sarah, and that's where the real heart of the film is. Sarah cares for her son, but for the wrong reasons. She knows what the future holds and she protects him from everything. In doing so, Sarah has shut herself out of John's life and alienated herself from the rest of humanity. But when you know how and when the world will end, you'll look at things differently. The film has not diminished with time. It's well made and the effects are still amazing. I especially like the scene where the T-1000 comes rising out of a checkerboard floor. I remember hearing people gasp in awe when that was on. What I will always remember from T2, is the thrill of seeing it for the first time, and when that metal foot comes down crushing that skull, I can still see the entire theater jumping in unison. Terminator 2 raised the action and special effects bar to new levels, and only just recently, has that been surpassed.