Easily one of the biggest movies of the 1990s, indeed, of my childhood, had to have been Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I personally saw this one several times, and to find it included as part of the four-DVD Schwartzenegger collection was a great and joyous surprise.
Part of the grand, grandiose and steadily growing Terminator saga, Terminator 2: Judgment Day brought us squarely to a sticking point. With Sarah Connor locked up in Pescadero Mental Hospital, Kyle Reese very dead and John Connor, future leader of the Resistance, currently living with foster parents in Reseda, things don’t exactly look good. And things only get worse when Skynet decides to pull a little more time travel chicanery and drop a fresh terminator, the T-1000, into the fray to try and take out John Connor.
But all is hardly lost, as a new ally is sent back in time to help out–a T-101 terminator, the classic Schwartzenegger terminator, is sent back to be placed under young John Connor’s command. And so, John and the terminator must go forth and spring Sarah from Pescadero, but at the same time also repel the T-1000 and survive. Further, they have the highly difficult task of removing every trace of terminator technology from the present day, and that’s going to involve busting into the developers’ headquarters, Cyberdyne Systems, and blasting it to kingdom come.
Sure, it’s not exactly much of a plot, but where Terminator 2: Judgment Day really shines is in its explosion count. Things are going to blow up so big and so often in this movie that you’ll scarcely notice they don’t actually, you know, DO a whole lot. There’s not a whole lot of time to bemoan the fact that they didn’t put much into advancing a plot or developing any characters or anything like that because you’re entirely too busy watching Robert Patrick and Arnold Schwartzenegger pound each other. You’re too busy watching Arnold take on a whole slew of cops with a GE Minigun. Oh, sure, there’s some plot here, but it’s not like that’s what anyone came here for, a lesson that would serve filmmakers well into the FOURTH installment, and probably in the fifth and sixth installments, too.
This being a special edition of sorts, even going so far as to bear the name “extreme DVD”, it will not surprisingly come jam-packed with all sorts of nifty extras, including things like a “Skynet Combat Chassis Designer” in which you get to build your own war machine and send it forth in battle, some photo morphing software and much more normal featurettes and deleted scenes and such.
There’s not a whole lot in this movie that might make anyone regard it as a BAD movie, but then, there’s not a whole lot in here that’d make anyone regard it as a particularly deep and rich movie either. In fact, this is essentially the beginning of the end for the Terminator franchise, and it’s all downhill from here. So yes, if you’re into action movies, into science fiction, and just can’t get enough of stuff go boom, then you’re definitely going to love this one, with all it entails.
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eoin ofaolain said
June 18 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Have to respectfully disagree. There is far more plot and character development in T2 than in any other blockbuster since. And yes, I’m including the likes of the Matrix or The Dark Knight. For one thing, it focuses on our sense of humanity. For another, it deals with our ambivalent relationship with machines, needing them as much as hating them, as developed in the surrogate father relationship John has with the T800. And for the length of the film there’s actually surprisingly few action scenes (1. the arcade and bike sequence, 2. The asylum, 3. Storming Skynet and chase, 4. the factory). Compare that to the empty explosions of T4 and you’ll see an astounding difference. Remember, explosions don’t mean anything unless we give a damn about the characters.
Luke said
June 18 2009 @ 7:03 pm
I have to agree with eoin on this. T2 is more profound than any action film that’s come out since. It’s easily the greatest action film of the 1990s because of that fact. I can’t believe this reviewer can’t see past the explosions and gunfire. The tin man finally gets a heart. Sarah Connor turns into a kind of female version of Travis Bickle because of her previous experiences with the Terminator. John Connor is perfectly portrayed as a young punk kid who just wants to feel loved by his mother and wants to find a father figure. He ends up finding that in a machine. This is some pretty profound stuff if you ask me.
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Paul said
June 18 2009 @ 11:20 pm
I just hope they don’t do what they did to the indiana jones movies
eoin ofaolain said
June 19 2009 @ 3:45 am
Paul, they already have. T4 is the Indy 4 of the franchise.
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