Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

Tormented by the imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust from which intelligent machines will emerge to crush the last vestiges of human existence, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) has been institutionalised and separated from her son.

Informed of the future, she knows that young John Connor (14-year-old Edward Furlong) will survive and become leader of the human race.

However, the machines of 2029 know it too, and once again they send a cyborg assassin back through time to terminate the potential saviour.

When she is not escaping from psychiatric hospitals or shooting at helicopters, she’s running around with more muscles than Madonna in Die Another Day – although not as many as Arnie.

Arnold Schwarzenegger comes back from the future – reprogrammed as a goody-goody to save our world from the T-1000 model (Robert Patrick), whose liquid metal shape-changing abilities set a new cinematic standard for stunning, computer-graphic special effects. T2 cost a reported $100 million, and you can actually see where the money went.

Linda Hamilton turns in another terrific performance as the fiercely committed heroine who puts a necessary human face on Director James Cameron’s high-decibel mayhem and pyrotechnical bravura.

Schwarzenegger has fun saying things like “Chill out, dickwad” and “Hasta la vista, baby” but the quips are predictable, the stock in trade of an icon for hire.

Cameron piles on the hard-edged humour and roller coaster action in this marvellous sequel to his own 1984 horror fantasy classic.

The Terminator
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Sarah Connor
Linda Hamilton
John Connor
Edward Furlong
T-1000
Robert Patrick
Dr Silberman
Earl Boen
Miles Dyson
Joe Morton
Tarissa Dyson
S Epatha Merkerson
Enrique Salceda
Castulo Guerra
Tim
Danny Cooksey
Janelle Voight
Jenette Goldstein
Kyle Reese
Michael Biehn
Todd Voight
Xander Berkeley

Director
James Cameron

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