TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY
[Spoilers]
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A big sci-fi (as opposed to "science
fiction") film with amazing special effects has Arnold
Schwarzenegger again playing a robot caught up in a battle
for the future being fought in the present. Stronger on
action than intelligence, it still manages to expand the
ideas of the first film. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
(There are films plotted in such a way that it is very difficult to say
anything without giving away twists in the plot. This review has been
worded carefully to avoid spoilers that have appeared in *every* other review
I have seen. A spoiler section will follow the review to discuss matters
that could not be addressed in the main body of the review.)
On August 29, 1997, so the story goes, the world is plunged into
nuclear war, though of about six billion people, only about half are
actually killed. The remaining three billion people are locked into a
life-and-death struggle of humans against machines. The machines achieve
sentience and set out to kill all humans to make the world safe for
machine-kind. But the one human who most stands in their way is John
Connor. So the machines send a killer robot, a "terminator," into the past
to the year 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, who is destined to be the mother of
John. The humans manage to send back a human to protect Sarah Connor. The
struggle of these two time travelers and the conception of John Connor is
the plot of the 1984 film THE TERMINATOR. The first robot, played by Arnold
Schwarzenegger, failed in his mission so the machines, who could send only
one robot back before, suddenly found a way to send a second robot. The
humans, too, who could send only one human before, find the means of sending
back their own representative for their own second shot. This time each
sends to somewhere around the year 1995, one with a mission to kill the now
ten-year-old John Connor, the other with a mission to protect John Connor.
Their conflict is the story of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY.
Sarah Connor's reaction to the events of the first film bordered on the
psychotic. She made it her mission to learn everything she could about
guerilla warfare and survival tactics to pass on to her son. She slept with
mercenaries and made friends with military personnel to help achieve her
goal. She was eventually placed in a mental institution and John was given
to foster parents. He seems to have aged fast and behaves like a much older
boy. He even apparently has a license for a dirt-bike that he rides like a
teenager and has broken the security on local cash machines. One might
assume that the sequel is more of a juvenile film if the main character is
so young, but director James Cameron uses that device only to widen the band
of audience appeal to include younger people. Arnold Schwarzenegger is as
tough as he was in the first outing but this time has more of an opportunity
to put personality into his character.
The new script adds some new concepts and forgets about some of the
old. And both actions are welcome. We discover this time around that the
nuclear war was not with the Soviets. This might have been considered a
necessary change since month by month the possibility of nuclear war between
the United States and the Soviets seems more and more remote. But without
the Soviets as foes, the question would be whom would we be fighting with.
The film provides an answer, as Cameron often does, by borrowing a concept
from another major science fiction film. (See the spoiler section if you
dare.) Not entirely gone but soft-pedaled is the ridiculous idea that only
living matter can go through the time portal. So the time portal strips
away clothing and weapons but for some reason leaves intact other dead
matter like hair and fingernails. However, at one point in the film, the
machines of the future send back a piece of metal and it makes it through
just fine without being living tissue. The concept that some physical
process in the time portal recognizes what is living and what is not is
dubious at best. This of course does raise an inconsistency in the plot,
but then Cameron considers and develops the ideas of the film only enough so
they do not get in the way of all the action scenes. Along those lines it
still has not occurred to the humans of the future (is "still" the right
word for events in the future?) that their efforts might be better spent in
sending back agents actually to avert the war, rather than just to lessen
its impact.
The action scenes and special effects--what most of the audience has
come to see--are delivered, even if not always in the most intelligent
manner. I consider Cameron's last film, THE ABYSS, a much more intelligent
and interesting action film. It had better characters and a much more
engrossing story. In one sequence of TERMINATOR 2, one of the good guys is
sprayed with machine gun fire that should have been instantly fatal, but he
lives considerably longer to exact his revenge. It is a little redundant,
incidentally, to say that it is a good guy sprayed with machine gun fire.
From a certain point in the plot on, the good guys undertake to do what has
to be done without killing any more of the bad guys, much like in the
Japanese action film SANJURO. The special effects are extremely well done
and undoubtedly account for a big piece of the film's price tag of somewhere
around a tenth of a billion dollars. That cost was apparently partially
defrayed by rubbing the audience's collective nose in the name of a well-
known soft drink.
While much of the special effects budget went into creating some really
impressive robot effects, there was enough left over to spend some very
impressive effects on a dream sequence. In the film THE MOUSE THAT ROARED,
in the midst of showing some screwball characters playing tag with a nuclear
super-weapon, we see a huge nuclear detonation. The narrator reassures us
that it did not really happen in the plot and the scene was just to remind
us what could happen any moment. Similarly, we see some of the most
frightening and realistic scenes ever created of a city destroyed by a
nuclear bomb. And we see them in a dream sequence to tell us, this is what
Sarah Connor is trying to avoid. In those scenes and many others the
audience can only marvel at the incredible technology used to create this
fervently anti-technology film.
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY is a large film with large virtues and large
faults. Like Mt. Rushmore, it is huge and a must-see, but one wonders if it
really was such a good idea in the first place. I would rate this
Mt. Rushmore of a movie +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
***SPOILER SECTION****SPOILER SECTION****SPOILER SECTION***
One of the nice touches of the script is its use of the audience's
expectations from the previous film to surprise the audience this time
around. Once again you have a mean-looking Arnold Schwarzenegger and a
smaller and more human-looking guy--thin, short, and his ears stick out--
arriving from the future. The natural assumption the audience has is that
the Schwarzenegger robot will be a killing machine aimed at John Connor, and
the other visitor will be playing defense. It would have caught the
audience nicely off-guard when each does precisely the opposite thing.
Unfortunately, you are looking at the first and only review I have seen that
does not spoil this twist for the audience.
Every review also gives away the nature of the bad terminator, a truly
awesome idea for a killing machine which it strikes me was borrowed from a
1960s DC comic book called "Metal Men." Visually the effect, a close
relative of the "water-tentacle" used in THE ABYSS, is very impressive.
However, the story simply did not carry through with the power of this
killer. In at least three of the scenes, he should have been able to take
out John Connor by turning himself into a strong clamp and a very long
sword. He should have been able to kill any human within twenty or thirty
feet of him fairly easily. There may have been some rule that said only a
certain percentage of his weight could go into the sword, but if that were
the case they should have said so. And this thing is many orders of
magnitude advanced over the old-style terminator. Where did the new
technology come from? It seems unlikely for 2029 that any such technology
will be possible.
It is nice that Sarah Connor starts to use her head, but why does
nobody in the future think in terms of stopping the nuclear war? And
destroying the computers is a good thought for someone like Sarah, but it
probably would not work. It is a standard security precaution to store
important software backups off-site just in case two robots from the future
decide to use your lab as a battleground. Or in case a defense computer
becomes sentient and starts dictating terms. I think Cameron probably
borrowed that idea from COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT.
One last question: When the liquid nitrogen truck took the liquid robot
into the foundry, am I the only one who knew the next two forces that would
be used against him? No, I thought not.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
.
Have I seen this movie: Yes
And what did I think: Here's a rare instance when a sequel actually outshines the original. The Terminator which came out in 1984 was extremely good in terms of story, acting, suspense and action. Seven years later, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton return for Terminator 2 and well.... it was definately worth the wait. Terminator 2 not only equals its predeceor, it surpasses it with a fantastic continuing story and supurb visual effects. most notably was how the T-1000 looked, played by the scary Robert Patrick. This was the first movie that they perfected the morphing effect, so the liquid metal of the T-1000 actually looked real. James Cameron does an excellent job directing here, with great cinematography and even more action and suspense then the original. It was great to see Arnold return this time playing the good guy, rather then the bad guy he played in the first movie. Linda Hamilton gives a great performance as Sarah Connor, a woman who is driven to near insanity from what she experienced in the years since she first encountered the Terminator. Also Edward Furlong, a relative newcomer back then, gives a great performance as John Connor, the boy that the Terminator is sent back in time to protect from the T-1000. We also get to see a bit what the future held for mankind, that the first movie didn't. There are rumors that a third movie might be produced which will be about the humans-machines war of the future. I hope it is, but if not, we will always have these two fine films, a must for any video collection.
I give Terminator 2: Judgment Day 5 out of 5 stars
Review written December 2, 1999
