A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her teenage son, John, from a more advanced cyborg, made out of liquid metal.
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A human-looking indestructible cyborg is sent from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate a waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity in a war against the machines, while a soldier from that war is sent to protect her at all costs.
Director:
James Cameron
Stars:
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Linda Hamilton,
Michael Biehn
A robotic warrior from a post-apocalyptic future travels back in time to protect a 20-year old drifter and his future wife from an most advanced robotic assassin and to ensure they both survive a nuclear attack.
Director:
Jonathan Mostow
Stars:
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Nick Stahl,
Kristanna Loken
The X-Men band together to find a mutant assassin who has made an attempt on the President's life, while the Mutant Academy is attacked by military forces.
Dr. Bruce Banner, thanks to a gamma ray experiment gone wrong, transforms into a giant green-skinned hulk whenever his pulse rate gets too high. Meanwhile, a soldier uses the same technology to become an evil version of the original.
A commercial transport ship and its crew are marooned on a planet full of bloodthirsty creatures that only come out to feast at night. But then, they learn that a month-long eclipse is about to occur.
A man goes on the run after he discovers that he is actually a "harvestable being", and is being kept as a source of replacement parts, along with others, in a Utopian facility.
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.
Almost 10 years have passed since the first cyborg called The Terminator tried to kill Sarah Connor and her unborn son, John Connor. John Connor, the future leader of the human resistance, is now a healthy young boy. However another Terminator is sent back through time called the T-1000, which is more advanced and more powerful than its predecessor. The Mission: to kill John Connor when he's still a child. However, Sarah and John do not have to face this threat of a Terminator alone. Another Terminator is also sent back through time. The mission: to protect John and Sarah Connor at all costs. The battle for tomorrow has begun... Written by
Eric ggg
The date of the fictional Judgment Day - 29 August 1997 - is the anniversary of the Soviet Union's first detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949. See more »
Goofs
Throughout the movie, several police cars lack the partition between the front and rear seats. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Sarah Connor:
[narrating]
Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The ...
See more »
Crazy Credits
Play the Nintendo Game from Acclaim/Lin Entertainment See more »
Guitars, Cadillacs
(1986)
Written and Performed by Dwight Yoakam
Published by Coal Dust West Music (BMI)
Courtesy of Reprise Records
by Arrangement with Warner Special Products See more »
Disclaimer: If you are a viewer that mainly prefers arthouse-type movies, then you might as well ignore this review. In addition, if you're not able to take a few sci-fi leaps of faith, ignore this review, as well. We'll both be better off.
This is the finest action movie of all time. And, yet, believe it or not, it's not the action in the film itself that makes this be the case. This is especially odd in a movie with a $100 million budget (in 1991!), with multiple huge explosions, with thousands of bullets fired, and scores of stuntmen used.
This movie is what it is, a perfect 10, because it takes the vision of one of the most imaginative directors on Earth, and realizes them almost perfectly with all the tools that fit the task -- actors, stunts, puppetry, models, and CG. Without the vision, this film would be nothing. Without the tools, this film would be nothing.
But, a little bit of background is due. This is the sequel to the Terminator (1984), whose premise was that a near-indestructible cyborg is sent by evil self-aware machines from the near future to destroy the mother-to-be of the military commander who would lead the humans to a victory over the machines. Oh, and this terminator machine would come from a time of war between men and machines which followed a nuclear exchange that left billions of people dead, first. In Terminator 2, John Connor (the commander-to-be) is about 12 years old, and his mother (Sarah) is feverishly trying to prepare him for his fate, even as she tries to stop the factors that will lead to the nuclear war and the entire terrible future that made all this necessary. The machines now send a superior, more intelligent, shape-shifting cyborg (T1000) into the past, to kill John himself. Meanwhile, future-John reprograms the ex-evil Terminator (T101) from the original film, and sends him into the past to PROTECT John against the T1000.
That's your basic plot. It does involve travel into the past, so it immediately presents a time-travel paradox which can't really be resolved. In order to even try watching this movie, you MUST LOOK PAST THE PARADOX. If you don't, this movie has zero credibility, and is not worth your time.
What happens after the two terminators appear in the past is a wild ride rife with macho action, dark reflection on the nature of man, and a few rays of hope, here and there. Schwarzenegger (the good terminator) and Patrick (the bad one) make for such effective foes that the times they meet on-screen are completely breathtaking (and odd, given that you repeatedly see the relatively slim T1000 through Arnie through a wall or two). Hamilton, as Sarah Connor, is a wonderful character -- tough beyond all belief and completely focussed on preventing the nuclear war and ensuring John's safety, yet clearly a little out of her mind with paranoia and anger; amazingly, you see actual character development (specifically, when John and T101 arrive at Dyson's house to prevent her from doing what she wants to) in her otherwise 2-dimensional character. And Furlong, as John, is not bad himself as the extroverted kid who's confused by the fact that everyone except his mom tell him his entire upbringing was based on a lie. The bit players all do their jobs well, particularly Earl Boen who plays the semi-sadistic mental hospital warden that stands between Sarah Connor and her son (until the T1000 makes a chilling entrance).
With these players set in motion, it's up to the script to deliver the real substance of the movie. (One often sees great performances in mediocre films... here the story transcends the performances -- an impressive feat.) The script delivers. The film is absolutely filled with great, classic moments (I counted TEN all-star ones during my last viewing), and they're evenly spaced through the movie. I mean, who doesn't cheer (at least inside) when Arnold steps out of the biker bar, fully clad in leather when "Bad to the Bone" music starts to blast? The guy absolutely bleeds coolness. And the T1000 absolutely bleeds evil. But, with so many great moments, you'd think the pacing would be a little uneven... not really! The film shifts from place to place with an ease that makes perfect sense, never giving you the time to start being a little nitpicking jerk, always driving forward, but always doing so thoughtfully and with attention to detail.
Of course, this wouldn't be an action movie without some action. There's plenty of it, and it's perfectly done. The CG effects for the shape-shifting T1000 were cutting-edge for the time, and still look great (whoever said differently below is simply incorrect) -- even if they're completely commonplace today. The stunts are completely insane in scale (at one point, a helicopter flies under a highway overpass; at another, a motorcycle jumps from the 2nd floor of a building into a flying chopper). (Probably, only the Matrix and the Lord of the Rings movies compare in terms of the level of stunt insanity.) And the gunplay is delivered in perfect Cameron-Schwarzenegger style (as opposed to the slo-mo John Woo-style) -- you'll see lots of heavy automatic and explosive weapons, and you'll see them used well. The film is violent, and somewhat bloody, but ALL of the mean-spirited violence is dealt by the evil characters, not the ones you root for (Quentin Tarantino fans: sorry). And then the truly amazing scenes that bypass acting are shocking and memorable -- just wait until the nuclear detonation sequence.
I'm not sure what else you would want in a movie. Probably moral content, and the movie has a very clear pro-human, anti-war message. The message is a bit stale, and the delivery IS, at times, a little heavy-handed (and some moments with the T101 seem just a bit unrealistic, towards the end), but the movie has heart, and that you cannot deny. Plus, it simply rocks. 10/10
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Disclaimer: If you are a viewer that mainly prefers arthouse-type movies, then you might as well ignore this review. In addition, if you're not able to take a few sci-fi leaps of faith, ignore this review, as well. We'll both be better off.
This is the finest action movie of all time. And, yet, believe it or not, it's not the action in the film itself that makes this be the case. This is especially odd in a movie with a $100 million budget (in 1991!), with multiple huge explosions, with thousands of bullets fired, and scores of stuntmen used.
This movie is what it is, a perfect 10, because it takes the vision of one of the most imaginative directors on Earth, and realizes them almost perfectly with all the tools that fit the task -- actors, stunts, puppetry, models, and CG. Without the vision, this film would be nothing. Without the tools, this film would be nothing.
But, a little bit of background is due. This is the sequel to the Terminator (1984), whose premise was that a near-indestructible cyborg is sent by evil self-aware machines from the near future to destroy the mother-to-be of the military commander who would lead the humans to a victory over the machines. Oh, and this terminator machine would come from a time of war between men and machines which followed a nuclear exchange that left billions of people dead, first. In Terminator 2, John Connor (the commander-to-be) is about 12 years old, and his mother (Sarah) is feverishly trying to prepare him for his fate, even as she tries to stop the factors that will lead to the nuclear war and the entire terrible future that made all this necessary. The machines now send a superior, more intelligent, shape-shifting cyborg (T1000) into the past, to kill John himself. Meanwhile, future-John reprograms the ex-evil Terminator (T101) from the original film, and sends him into the past to PROTECT John against the T1000.
That's your basic plot. It does involve travel into the past, so it immediately presents a time-travel paradox which can't really be resolved. In order to even try watching this movie, you MUST LOOK PAST THE PARADOX. If you don't, this movie has zero credibility, and is not worth your time.
What happens after the two terminators appear in the past is a wild ride rife with macho action, dark reflection on the nature of man, and a few rays of hope, here and there. Schwarzenegger (the good terminator) and Patrick (the bad one) make for such effective foes that the times they meet on-screen are completely breathtaking (and odd, given that you repeatedly see the relatively slim T1000 through Arnie through a wall or two). Hamilton, as Sarah Connor, is a wonderful character -- tough beyond all belief and completely focussed on preventing the nuclear war and ensuring John's safety, yet clearly a little out of her mind with paranoia and anger; amazingly, you see actual character development (specifically, when John and T101 arrive at Dyson's house to prevent her from doing what she wants to) in her otherwise 2-dimensional character. And Furlong, as John, is not bad himself as the extroverted kid who's confused by the fact that everyone except his mom tell him his entire upbringing was based on a lie. The bit players all do their jobs well, particularly Earl Boen who plays the semi-sadistic mental hospital warden that stands between Sarah Connor and her son (until the T1000 makes a chilling entrance).
With these players set in motion, it's up to the script to deliver the real substance of the movie. (One often sees great performances in mediocre films... here the story transcends the performances -- an impressive feat.) The script delivers. The film is absolutely filled with great, classic moments (I counted TEN all-star ones during my last viewing), and they're evenly spaced through the movie. I mean, who doesn't cheer (at least inside) when Arnold steps out of the biker bar, fully clad in leather when "Bad to the Bone" music starts to blast? The guy absolutely bleeds coolness. And the T1000 absolutely bleeds evil. But, with so many great moments, you'd think the pacing would be a little uneven... not really! The film shifts from place to place with an ease that makes perfect sense, never giving you the time to start being a little nitpicking jerk, always driving forward, but always doing so thoughtfully and with attention to detail.
Of course, this wouldn't be an action movie without some action. There's plenty of it, and it's perfectly done. The CG effects for the shape-shifting T1000 were cutting-edge for the time, and still look great (whoever said differently below is simply incorrect) -- even if they're completely commonplace today. The stunts are completely insane in scale (at one point, a helicopter flies under a highway overpass; at another, a motorcycle jumps from the 2nd floor of a building into a flying chopper). (Probably, only the Matrix and the Lord of the Rings movies compare in terms of the level of stunt insanity.) And the gunplay is delivered in perfect Cameron-Schwarzenegger style (as opposed to the slo-mo John Woo-style) -- you'll see lots of heavy automatic and explosive weapons, and you'll see them used well. The film is violent, and somewhat bloody, but ALL of the mean-spirited violence is dealt by the evil characters, not the ones you root for (Quentin Tarantino fans: sorry). And then the truly amazing scenes that bypass acting are shocking and memorable -- just wait until the nuclear detonation sequence.
I'm not sure what else you would want in a movie. Probably moral content, and the movie has a very clear pro-human, anti-war message. The message is a bit stale, and the delivery IS, at times, a little heavy-handed (and some moments with the T101 seem just a bit unrealistic, towards the end), but the movie has heart, and that you cannot deny. Plus, it simply rocks. 10/10