Spectactular special effects-laden sci-fi action film

Rating: 7/10 (4 August 2018)

An American sci-fi thriller; The second film in the Terminator franchise used CGI technology to great effect and along with marvellous stunts and other visual effects helped make it a 'best in class' spectacle and a great genre film. It has an intriguing hero, a fierce heroine, and a young boy who is played with energy. One of the few false notes is that the story doesn't produce one single character to root for, and the ending doesn't make 'Sarah Connor' the hero prepared to terminate the machine herself despite everything.
The film has an interesting story, but to audiences it was a repeat premise of the Terminator (1984) - a boy has to be destroyed so that he doesn't grow up to be a revolutionary leader who would thwart the objective of an artificial intelligence computer network to bring about a nuclear war. Science paradoxes are rife - a higher intelligence in the future is the very end product of its time travelling mission so as to deduce in a femtosecond that it is futile logic.
That aside, we have a convincing central performance from its star once again, and stirring support from Linda Hamilton. Robert Patrick gives a menacing portrayal of the advanced machine out to stop the prevention of 'Judgment Day'. The pacing is good with some thought provoking narrative tight to the storyline which produces comical material in the Terminator-boy exchanges.
There are the usual car chases, explosions and fight scenes, all well done - and well directed in the big set pieces, but it is a film most memorable for the way the movie envisions a liquid metal human figure. Since technology has emerged in recent years able to mimic this effect in some small way makes Direcor James Cameron's vision quite remarkable.
Tension doesn't run quite as high as in the former film, where Arnold Schwarzenegger excelled in convincing us of a terrifying force and image, a diabolical killing machine seemingly incapable of being destroyed by humans, but it is in the special effects that this film soars to realise the vision of a high technology future and epic story of man vs thinking machine.