Terminator 2 has everything you need in a sci-fi/action movie – a hero, a constant threat from an enemy who’s level of powers you are unsure of (the liquid metal T-1000), the threat of future science and plenty of violence and chase scenes. Everything about the movie screams tension – the signature music still brings shudders out in grown men and women.
The opening scene sets up the bad-ass Arnie/Terminator character for the whole movie – he starts a bar fight, steals a guys leathers, shades and motor bike while ‘Bad to the Bone’ plays in the background.
Eddie Furlong is a pre-teenage John Connors, the future saviour of our world in a war against the machines. His Mum (Linda Hamilton) is in a mental home for trying to warn the powers that be that a machine revolution is coming. His Dad was from the future and hasn’t been born yet. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator, the same type of machine that tried to kill John’s parents in the first movie, but is reprogrammed to rescue John in this one.
Imagine poor John’s reaction to meeting the Terminator – a beast his mother has been warning him about since day one. “Come with me if you want to live.” Were you ever more terrified to take the hand of a 7ft leather-clad Arnold Schwarzenegger who has just blasted the bejaysus out of anyone in his way?
The machines from the future have gone one better – they’ve evolved since the Arnie-shaped Terminator, and now make slim-line self-melting-metal-forming-humanesque terminators, called the T-1000. Played by Robert Patrick as the silently violent enemy in policeman’s clothes, the T-1000 is truly terrifying. He can in an instant form his hands into metal bars to stab and claw as he sees fit. Sticking him in a policeman’s uniform adds more fear as he reclaims the role of the law-abiding protector and becomes the hunter.
What you don’t expect in Terminator 2, is how fond you’ll become of the Terminator. Arnie is a likable machine really, and he wants to learn about human behaviour. As the movie progresses, he not only becomes a protector to John, but a father-figure (ironic because “he” technically killed John’s father in the first movie). The Terminator learns compassion, and kindness, and even grows a sense of humour.
For 1991, the movie displays some incredible visual effects, which had come on miles since the original 1984 movie. It used for the first time, natural human motion, which became the landmark for such epic movies in years to come.
The final scene is by far the most epic goodbye scene in sci-fi history. We have seen the terminator fight for John and become humanistic and a hero. Now we must see him sacrifice himself to prevent the war in the future. Lowering himself into the molten steel, we see that if a machine can learn the value of human life, maybe there is hope for us yet.
Movie gold.
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