Review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) by Kai82 — 25 Mar 2021

One of the best movie sequels of all time and it earned its place in movie / pop culture history. It was carefully made, plays with expectations and delivers an amazing experience. It had a good mixture of action, character development with an immersive story.

Lets start at the beginning: The Terminator was already a really good experience and the story could easily be continued. It is the standard Hollywood rule that if a movie is successful enough you get a sequel no matter what (Curse and blessing of the industry).

It took still quite a while until they started. A frequent reason I read were production issues and that the special effects technology was not good enough. However after solving the issues they could start.

Luckily they get the best assets back with James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton atop of many people behind the screen. The story is set approx 10 years after the prequel. The supercomputer Skynet who is at war with humanity in the future sends another Terminator to get rid of John Connor who will lead the human resistance to victory.

Again the resistance does send one of them back to stop the Terminator. This sounds firstly like a warmed up retelling or re-shoot of Terminator 1 but you will be surprised how good the story will become and how much effort was put into it (I am vague on purpose to avoid spoilers).

The story itself has a lot of good ideas some twists and a mixture of action, story telling and character development / interaction that makes it hard to find flaws. Of cause you can find smarter solutions for Skynet to eliminate John like a virus pandemic or a high bounty to let ruthless humans do the hard work.

However these are just thoughts or ideas and will not be used against the movie. I will continue with the actors. Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to his most iconic role and fully delivers. Same goes for Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor.

She also fully delivers and got a lot of character development. Then we got Robert Patrick who is the best addition to the movie. Edward Furlong as (young) John Connor is one of the few good child actors that also started successful career later.

He is absolutely believable and relatable. I want to point out for the rest of the cast that there is not one missed scene or awkward acting moment I can remember. Everything fits into the narrative and I think I should praise James Cameron as director (also writer and producer).

Visually the movie sets new standards for its time. Be it the sets or especially the special effects. While some special effects look not that impressing today they were amazing and baffled the audience.

Then there are of cause the action sequences and they do nothing halfhearted. Often I hold my breath because these were so intense, immersive and entertaining. The stunt team deserves credits. Overall this is rightfully named as one of the best sequels of all times and outclasses the prequel.

It is one of the most well know movies of all time, pop culture legend and so carefully made that it is easy to recommend. It is the best of the franchise and the kind of movie all later installments try to reach or surpass (Hint: They never came close again).