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Rating: Terminator 2 is released on July 3, 1991, seven years after the successful first chapter dedicated to the assassin cyborg from the future. With a hundred million budget (seventeen of which solely for special effects), it is one of the most expensive sequels in film history.
The story, instead, begins in 1994, ten years after the events narrated in the first film, and features a teenage John Connor (played by then newcomer Edward Furlong - "American History X", "The Knights Who Made the Enterprise", "The Crow: Wicked Prayer") and a Sarah Connor (the confirmed Linda Hamilton) interned in a psychiatric hospital, Pescadero. This time, two Terminators are sent from the future: another T-800 (of course Arnold Schwarzenegger), this time assigned by John Connor to protect himself, and an advanced model made of liquid metal, the T-1000 (played by an incredible Robert Patrick, perhaps one of the most successful villains in the history of science fiction cinema).
The film's strength is definitely worth emphasizing: the astonishing special effects. The animation of the T-1000 is still credible today, fourteen years later. In this regard, Cameron's films are always a guarantee. Schwarzy and Hamilton reprise their roles convincingly, significantly enriching their characters' backgrounds (especially the female protagonist, reluctant to accept the help of a machine that has caused her so many nightmares, but also the cyborg attempting to become more human and less "mechanical" with the help of young John), and the story seems more intricate, not almost exclusively focused on the escape as in the first chapter. A lot of attention is directed towards Sarah, who evolves from the frightened girl of the first film to a true war machine, ready to do anything to defend her son and humanity: even kill.
The film's weak point is the cutting of some very interesting scenes, later published in subsequent DVD versions: in one, Kyle Reese from the first film even reappears in Sarah's dream (again played by Michael Biehn). In another, Sarah tries to destroy the T-800's processor after extracting it from its head but is stopped by John.
"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is one of the rare cases in world cinematography where a sequel is often considered (and rightly so) even superior to the original.
A great work by Cameron, partially marred by the superficial "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" by Mostow, which would be released another twelve years later.
"The future, once again unknown, is moving toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too." Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)
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