Fantastic sequel

Rating: 10/10 (25 May 2013)

Driving the studio to near-bankruptcy, James Cameron powered on with a huge-budgeted sequel to the film that made his career, and brought the man it turned into a larger-than-life screen icon back on board, Arnold Schwarzenegger, this time as a Terminator reprogrammed to protect the young John Connor from the more advanced liquid-metal shape-shifting T-1000.
Although Arnie is perhaps not quite as good as when he was the villain, he manages to make a walking lunk of a robot into a sympathetic character, essentially becoming a father figure to John, and coming as close to human as a reprogrammed cyborg killer can.
The T-1000 is likened by the director as a Porsche to Arnie's Panzer, a sleeker, and much more sinister killing machine. Robert Patrick is great as the T-1000's human form, the only show of emotion coming when he taunts Sarah at the climax.
Some find Edward Furlong annoying, but he's effective enough as the wild out-of-control John, who is forced to take on responsibilities. One perfect example of this is when John orders the T-800 to attack two guys hassling them, and the Terminator comes close to shooting one of them before John is forced to intervene.
Most impressive though, is Linda Hamilton, giving us a very different Sarah Connor to the scream queen forced to be brave in the first one. Now buffed up, tough-as-nails, and when we first see her imprisoned in a mental asylum, Sarah is truly convincing as the woman whose destiny is to prepare her son for his.
With a bigger budget, we get bigger action set-pieces, each one a jaw-dropper, from bone-crunching vehicle chases, to mass destruction. The special effects, out-of-this-world back then, still impress. The only thing the film perhaps lacks is the dark edge the first film had, though there are still some neat moments that prove this isn't kiddie fare.