35 years of a great sequel you’ll be back for.
Two weeks in a row, we have gotten mediocre action movies like “Mutiny” and “The Dog Stars” in a summer when blockbusters like “The Odyssey,” “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” and “The End of Oak Street” all took their special effects and ideas to new heights. In fact, we need to see blockbusters in theaters, because of the movie-going experience. Which is why I’m reminding you to see “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” in theaters.
This is the great sequel from 1991, directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the title walking machine, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary in theaters this week, kudos to Fathom Events. If you haven’t seen the sequel, then this is a great opportunity for you to do so. If Gen Z can help bring back the Blockbuster experience with their own Little Free Libraries, then they can help bring movie-goers to where they need to be. And the classics shouldn’t be an exception.
The year is 2029 (that’s three years from now), most of the human race has been wiped out, and Terminators are controlled by Skynet. The very few humans left alive are part of a resistance group to destroy the machines. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is the leader of the resistance, and has been preparing her son John (Edward Furlong) for what was yet to come on August 29, 1997.
The Terminator (Schwarzenegger) has been reprogrammed as the good guy to travel back to 1995 to protect John. But also traveling back in time to kill the boy is a shapeshifting terminator known as the T-1000 model (Robert Patrick), who disguises himself as a cop. And whoever it copies, dies by its hands. Now that’s a reminder of “The Thing,” if I do say so myself.
Meanwhile, Sarah has been sent to a mental institution, after trying to blow up a computer factory to save the future. In the tradition of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” these scenes, though irritating in any format, are well-acted, and the escape scene is thrilling. In fact, when I reviewed the 2019 sequel subtitled: “Dark Fate,” I made a little joke about a new character trying to warn an officer about the dangers. I imagined Sarah telling that girl: “I tried that and ended up in a hospital.”
“Terminator 2: Judgement Day” is wildly entertaining in the ways it expands the Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator’s horizons, as well as allowing the young John Connor to help him find sly wit and human affection. As far as I’m concerned, movie robots have more feelings than real life A.I., and I’ve been trying to convey that for years. Especially this sequel was released in 1991, a time when kids weren’t using A.I. to do their homework or on Instagram when we get fake animated shorts. Furlong is a charmer as the kid; Hamilton shines again as Sarah; and Patrick explodes as the T-1000 model. The special effects and stunts are mind-blowing, the images are great, the story is risky, and James Cameron brings it all together. And there’s no other robot that looks fresh in sunglasses.
