Before Robert Patrick was Agent Doggett, before James Cameron was the King of the World, and before Arnold Schwarzenegger was a semi-respectable politician, there was Terminator 2. And, I guess, if you want to be technical about it, before that there was Terminator. But there's no television connection there, so let's just pretend it didn't happen. You know, like how Schwarzenegger pretends Last Action Hero didn't happen.
Our story begins in a pleasant children's playground. It's a lovely day and the children are laughing, but we have a sense of foreboding. Who can say why? Perhaps it's the fact that the children are shot in slow motion. Perhaps it the low rumbling of ominous music. Or maybe it's because we saw this movie ten years ago, so we know that there's about to be a flash of light and a cut to a desolate future where no one's bothered to clean up all these skeletons that litter the landscape like so many cheap attempts to shock us.
It's Los Angeles, 2029 A.D. and there are bumper-to-bumper burnt-out wrecks on the Interstate. This contrasts nicely with the opening shot of the movie, which was bumper-to-bumper normal cars on the Interstate. I would have mentioned that opening shot, but I wanted to get straight to the playground. That's probably a reflex left over from elementary school. The playground in 2029 is also burnt out, and Linda Hamilton's voice, also sounding burnt-out, tells us that some large number of people died in a nuclear fire on some date in 1997. Sure, you remember. The nuclear fire? In 1997? Right. And the survivors of this war (which, as you no doubt remember from the newspapers, was called "Judgment Day") lived to fight the machines, which respond to their cue by clunking onscreen and crushing skulls underfoot. There are laser tanks, and walking robots, and generally a lot of laser fire. Things go boom. Then things flip over and go boom. If I were designing a race of robots to battle humanity, I don't think I'd make them quite so flammable.
Linda continues her exposition: a computer (SkyNet) controls the robots, and it sent two Terminators back through time. The first one was supposed to kill her in 1984, but it failed. The second one was supposed to kill her son, John Connor, when he was just a child. Here's a shot of scarface John now, so the implication is that he survived. I guess we can all go home now. Boy, that 156 minutes just flew right by, didn't it?
Oops, wait. My mistake. More exposition. The resistance (led by Adult John) also sent back a Terminator to protect young John. "It was just a question of which one would get to him first" drones Linda, as the camera lingers on a fireball in a shameless attempt to win an Academy Award for Visual Effects (P.S. -- Mission Accomplished!).
The name of the movie, now that we've arrived at the opening credits, is Terminator 2: Judgment Day, not "T2". I blame this movie for the outbreak of abbreviated movie titles, like "ID4" for Independence Day and "WWW" for Wild Wild West. Well, I guess I blame Will Smith a little.
Once we've exhausted the cinematic possibilities inherent in a screen full of fire, we end up at a parking lot at night. There are lightning and zappy sound effects, heralding the arrival of a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger. He slowly stands up while the orchestra expresses its admiration for his physique, and we see his computer-vision analyzing motorcycles outside a bar. Inside, the pool-playing patrons are startled by Naked Arnold Schwarzenegger, and who wouldn't be? He scowls his way through the bar, analyzing each patron. I know this because the readout on the left side of the screen says "analysis." He finally selects a bearded cigar-smoking guy, who does not respond well to being told "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle." If I could just take a minute here, the cigar-smoking guy was also in Near Dark, where this exact thing happened to him: he was playing pool in a bar, some vampires came in, he mouthed off, and got the thrashing of his life. The last thrashing of his life. Apparently he didn't learn his lesson, because he puts his cigar out on Naked Arnold's chest.
Mayhem, inevitably, ensues. Cigar-guy gets his hand broken, someone gets thrown through the window, cigar-guy gets thrown through a different window to land on the hot stove, a guy with a knife gets his arm broken, and the rest of the bar decides to go find a bar that doesn't have Naked Arnold Schwarzenegger in it. Naked Arnold goes to find Cigar Guy, who is unable to cock his pistol with only one hand. Poor Cigar Guy.
George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" (which, in 1991, was only "overused", not "horribly overused" like it is today") plays as Arnold walks out of the bar, clad in Presumably-Naked Cigar Guy's leathers. Before he can drive away on Cigar Guy's motorcycle, the bartender shows up with a shotgun. Arnold snatches away the gun and takes the barkeep's sunglasses, for no reason other than general aesthetic coolness. I have to admit, he looks pretty cool. That might be because of the long, loving shots of Arnold Bestride Motorcycle, though.
This might be a good time to share with you a theory I have about this movie. You lucky people. When the movie came out, everyone knew that Arnold was playing the good guy this time. All the commercials went on about it. But I don't think you're supposed to know that in the context of the movie itself. The character, who looks just like the evil Terminator from the first movie , has shown up, crippled several bikers, and is now riding a motorcycle at night, with shades on, while "Bad to the Bone" plays. I submit to you that at this point, we are intended to think him the bad guy. I'll have more on this as the plot develops. Assuming it does.
Back in the parking lot, or possibly a different one, a police car pulls up amid lightning and zappy sound effects. Apparently, there was an "electrical disturbance", which turns out to be code for "is it okay if I go off-duty while Naked Robert Patrick kills me and takes my form? In hardly any time at all, Naked Robert is Officer Patrick in a police car, calling up John Connor's arrest record. He's down for trespassing, shoplifting, disturbing the peace, and vandalism. John lives with his legal guardians, one of whom is Vasquez from Aliens. She wants him to clean up his room, but he's working on his motorcycle.
Incidentally, I know it's fun to find mistakes in movies and television shows, and I have no objection to it, in its place. However, someone has felt it necessary to complain about the fact that the bike has a four-stroke engine, but the sound effects are those of a two-stroke engine. Well, good job, dude. You found a moment of implausibility in this movie about time-traveling robots. You're a freakin' genius.
John Connor listens to Guns 'n' Roses' "You Could Be Mine" (and if you weren't around in 1991, who are you to judge?), has a Public Enemy shirt, hangs out with a mulleted kid in a denim vest, and has hair hanging down in front of his face. Just the sort of kid who trespasses, shoplifts, disturbs peace, and vandalizes. Introducing young Edward Furlong, ladies and gentlemen. Try not to hold Pet Sematary II against him.
John gets his foster mother to go away by the cunning stratagem of revving his motorcycle really loud, and now all I can think of is "that's a two-stroke engine sound." I don't even know what a two-stroke engine is. Foster Mom forces Foster Dad to go out and talk to him, but John roars away in a wash of two-stroke engine noises and Guns 'n' Roses. He's a rebel, that kid.
Suddenly, we're in a hospital ("Yeah, we've all been to parties like that") watching Sarah Connor do chin-ups. Dr. Condescension is out in the hall lecturing his patients on Sarah's acute schizo-affective disorder as orderlies drag struggling girls down the hallways. Apparently, Sarah is under the impression that a machine called a Terminator was sent back through time and you know what? I don't think the good doctor realizes that Sarah already covered this in the opening voice-over. I don't see why a sequel needs a double helping of exposition, but who am I to judge? I don't even have a nifty tweed jacket like Dr. Condescension. He directs his squad of students to peer through the window at Sarah after making fun of her delusions that the first movie happened.
Officer Robert (I'm sorry to keep referring to him and Arnold by the names of the actors, but the character names are "T-800" and "T-1000", and I don't think I'd be able to face myself in the morning if I went down that path) pulls into shot in his police car, and we get a good long look at the "To Protect and Serve" logo on the door. We're no longer in the hospital, by the way; the magic of cinema has whisked us away to the Foster residence. Robert Patrick seems almost human (that's what I kept saying about Doggett!) as he interviews Mr. and Mrs. Foster Parent, even giving them a thin-lipped little smile as he leaves with John's picture. See what I mean, here? This Terminator is in a police uniform, with a "protect and serve" sticker on his car, and he's smiling at the parents. If you didn't know anything but the first movie, you'd be convinced that this was the Good Terminator.
Meanwhile, at the Federal Security Bank, John and his friend (whose mullet keeps making me think of Corey Feldman) have a magical ATM-cracking device that lets them steal three hundred dollars. It seems that young John learned the arts of Electronics and Unconvincing Movie Gimcrackery from his "real mom", who would be Sarah. You remember Sarah, we just left her with Dr. Condescension. After some grilling by Not Corey Feldman, John snaps and says that his mom's a complete psycho; that's why she's at a mental institution. Which the audience already knew, having seen her there two minutes ago. There really isn't much plot to this movie, so I don't know why they feel the need to go over every point two or three times. We get the picture: Good Robot, Bad Robot. Fight!
Anyway, John, Not Corey, and the intermingled sounds of a two-stroke engine and Axl Rose singing the same song as before roar down the suburban street, unaware that they're being followed a big, menacing Austrian on a motorcycle.
Back to the hospital. Sarah is watching herself on a videotape, talking about her dreams of nuclear fire (the nuclear fire from 1997, which is in her future, but our past, although since she learned about it in the last movie, she thinks of it as being in her past as well -- got that?). "I'm sure it feels very real to you," oozes the doctor. "On August 29, 1997, it's gonna feel pretty fuckin' real to you, too. Anybody not wearin' two million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day. Get it?" snaps Sarah, and for some reason, it turns out that this movie didn't win any Academy Awards for its writing.
Proceeding to emote all over the place, Sarah insists that everyone in the room is "dead already", because of that whole their-future-is-her-past thing I covered in that parenthetical statement up there. Scream, scream, scream. In the videotape. But the real Sarah is "much better now". She's acting calm so she can be transferred to the minimum security wing and have visitors. The doctor is unconvinced by her conversion, since "you told me on many occasions how you crushed [a Terminator] in a hydraulic press." Playing along, Sarah admits that if she had, there would be some evidence. And she can't think why "the Company" would cover it up.
Cut to the Company, and imagine my surprise. A flunky with a can of Pepsi wants Mr. Dyson's attention, because Dyson needs to sign "it" out. Does Mr. Dyson know where "it" came from? "Don't ask." Gosh! This certainly is a mystery! Their clever wordplay has left me completely at a loss. What could "it" possibly be? They stretch the suspense out a good 45 seconds before revealing that "it" is a little piece of vaguely computer-looking material. Right next to a big robot arm that may well have come from a Terminator that got crushed in a hydraulic press in an earlier movie.
I guess they showed us that part in case we thought Sarah was crazy, although I don't see how that hypothesis explains the scenes of robots crushing skulls, to say nothing of Naked Arnold and Naked Robert. Back in the hospital, Sarah seems to think there's a chance she'll get put in minimum security. But Dr. Condescension is having none of that; he's not fooled by her cunning lies. He knows she's just pretending not to believe in Terminators. So to convince him of her sanity, she lunges over the desk at his throat. That'll show him. It's a good thing there's a steady supply of burly orderlies to sedate her.
If that's the sound of a two-stroke engine, we must be following John and his little pal again. John takes his motorcycle into one of those concrete embankments you get in Los Angeles that look like dried-up artificial riverbeds. I've just described it perfectly accurately, and you have no idea what it is, right? Try this: remember where they had the race at the end of Grease? There you go.
As they pass under an overpass (um, or something), Arnold drives by, sees them, and his computer-vision says "Target Acquired". You notice how we haven't seen any of Robert's computer-vision? That's because we're supposed to be thinking Arnold's the bad guy. See? See? I'm not crazy.
Arnold can't follow them very well, and they get away. But he sees what direction they were going. Meanwhile, Officer Robert is showing the picture to various kids, who point him to the Galleria.
In the Galleria, John is playing a game that I identify instantly, from its trackball and single teeny red button, as Missile Command. It seems like with three hundred freshly-stolen dollars, he could play a better class of video game. Officer Robert prowls through the mall. Arnold has a box of roses, which somehow look ominous in his hands. John's having trouble with the incoming missiles. There's Arnold looking around. There's Officer Robert talking to kids and being pointed toward the arcade. John's game is over with the big explody "THE END" thing. Arnold. Officer Robert. Now John's playing Afterburner, which I seem to remember as being a pretty cool game at the time. You kids don't know how good you have it.
Officer Robert asks John's sidekick if he recognizes the picture of John. Acting like a good second banana, he denies it and scurries off to warn John that the fuzz is after him. Actually, he says "There's this cop scopin' for you. Check it out!" Sadly, this dialogue is perfectly realistic for the time and place. Other kids in the arcade aren't so accommodating, and John has to duck out the back door while Officer Robert shoves kids to the floor to get at him.
In a mall back alley, John runs past an extra with a can of Pepsi before he bursts through some doors into a very similar alley with a big Pepsi machine and a seven-foot leather-clad shades-wearing Arnold Schwarzenegger with a shotgun in a box of roses. Arnold crushes the roses underfoot as he walks (just like the robot at the beginning crushed the skull!), and soon the extra and John are caught between Officer Robert and Arnold.
Arnold says "get down" and John hits the floor so Arnold can shoot Officer Robert with the shotgun. That's where you're supposed to smack your forehead and say "Oh! Arnold's playing the good guy this time! I was duped!" That's all I'm trying to say. Robert doesn't seem fazed by the big messy metal hole in his shoulder, so Arnold has to grab John and take several bullets in his broad robot back. The extra goes down somewhere around here, although he doesn't drop his refreshing can of Pepsi. John screams, and I guess I can understand that. Shoving John out of the way, Arnold pumps shotgun blasts into Robert, who looks dead. But, what's this? He's healing himself somehow! Yeah, I know, he's liquid metal, but let's pretend to be surprised, okay?
The two Terminators scuffle a little, denting concrete and throwing each other through the walls, and John decides that maybe he ought to get the heck out of there. After Robert throws Arnold through a plate glass window in the front of a clothing store (and pauses to look at a silver mannequin, hee hee, isn't this movie just the cleverest thing?), the chase is on.
While Arnold is getting up (and a guy with a camera is getting many pictures), John runs down the stairwell to his bike, has the requisite trouble starting it, and vrooms off. Robert follows on foot, and his compact running style looks like it could do thirty or forty mph easily. John pulls out in front of a semitruck, which Robert jumps into and commandeers, and before you know it, we're in the middle of an action sequence!
So: Robert's driving a Freightliner with reckless abandon, knocking cars out of the way in his pursuit of John, who's driving a wee little motorcycle. The chase goes down a reasonably busy street, at which point it picks up Arnold on his large motorcycle, and John goes down into the concrete thing that looks like the race from Grease. Only the wee motorcycle can make it down the path he chose, so John thinks it's safe to stop and look behind him. When he sees the Freightliner go flying off the overpass and come lurching forward at him, all crushed and broken but still going faster than he can, John sensibly takes off again.
John weaves around puddles, shopping carts, and derelict cars, while Robert drives right through them. Arnold follows up above them (where the Pink Ladies were sitting in Grease), taking the occasional potshot at the truck. A low overpass does not deter Robert, who cheerfully lets the top of his truck get sheared off. After Robert's truck rams John a few times (which I would have thought would be hard for a kid on a small motorcycle to handle), Arnold flies his motorcycle down the twenty feet or so to get involved in the chase on a personal level. After managing to get around the Freightliner, Arnold grabs John onto his bike and shoots out one of the truck's front tires with his shotgun. If this were the A*Team, the truck would immediately flip over, but instead it slides out of control into a pillar. In an uncharacteristic nod to realism, we're shown both the spewing gas and some sparking wires before the inevitable explosion.
Arnold readies his shotgun, but the only sign of life is a pretty cool burning tire rolling out of the wreckage. He and John speed off. And then, of course, a shiny silver man walks out of the fire, resolving itself into Robert Patrick.
Meanwhile, on the motorcycle, John's had enough and demands that they stop. "Now don't take this the wrong way, but you are a Terminator, right?" Bright kid. It turns out that Arnold is "Cyberdyne Systems Model 101." I think I'll just keep calling him "Arnold."
Arnold allows John to poke him in the face to show that he's real. And then, showing ever greater restraint, he does nothing as John starts mumbling. "This is intense. Okay, get a grip, John..." Me, I start shooting whenever people start talking to themselves and using their own names. It's just creepy. John has noticed that Arnold isn't here to kill him but to protect him. "Who sent you?" he asks. Arnold: "You did. Thirty-five years from now you reprogrammed me to be your protector here. In this time."
Later that night, still on Arnold's motorcycle, it's time for more exposition about how Robert is more advanced and is made of liquid metal. Arnold won't let John go back home, because the T-1000 (that's Robert) would try to "reacquire him" there. Foster Mom and Foster Dad, when reached on the phone, sound a little strange. Arnold imitates John's voice and, through the clever ruse of getting the dog's name wrong, discovers that John's foster parents are dead. He breaks the news gently, though, turning to John and saying, "Your foster parents are dead." It turns out that Foster Mom's hand had turned into a huge blade off screen, poking right through Foster Dad's head. She morphs back into Officer Robert and we're done with the foster home.
In a parking lot somewhere, John and Arnold are going over the ground rules for the rest of the movie: the T-1000 can change itself into anything of equal size, but can't form guns or explosives. No chemicals or moving parts. Knives and stabbing weapons are good, though.
Sarah (remember her? Linda Hamilton?) is being interrogated by a cop who remembers Arnold killing seventeen police officers in the first movie. They have pictures of him. And they also have pictures taken at "a mall in Reseda," showing exactly the same person. Come to think of it, I guess the sunglasses and biker leathers might be preprogrammed fashion sense. It's the natural extension of specifying what color you want your Macintosh to come in, really.
The interrogation doesn't go well, because Sarah is feigning catatonia. But she palms a paperclip, and we all know from The Silence Of The Lambs how easy it is to escape from a maximum-security facility using only a small piece of metal.
John and Arnold are bonding. Well John's doing most of the work, describing how his mother used to sleep with anyone she could find with useful military skills to teach John. That's just creepy. It was traumatic when he was told she was crazy, and now he's finding out that everything she said was true. So now he wants to go bust her out of the mental ward.
Arnold disapproves of the idea; he expects the T-1000 to copy Sarah Connor and wait for John to make contact. And kill Sarah, which is not an idea John likes. After a brief contest of wills, John starts screaming for help. Eventually, he discovers that Arnold has to obey direct orders. He does all the fun teenage things: "Stand on one foot, put your leg down, grab this guy," then he discovers that Arnold is willing to kill things. But John's got a conscience, and tells his new robotic killing machine that it's not allowed to kill things.
Then he orders Arnold to help him rescue Sarah. And not a moment too soon, because in the next shot, we see Officer Robert driving into the hospital. Then we see Sarah being put to bed in five-point restraints. Just to be creepy, the orderly licks her face. She doesn't react, but once she's alone, it's out with the paperclip. The restraints and door lock are no match for her mad skillz.
Officer Robert infiltrates the building by pretending to be part of the floor. What's next, ninjas disguising themselves as a hedge? The T-1000 stops looking like Officer Robert long enough to take the form of the portly security guard, who is fortuitously looking the other way. Snikt! goes the finger and the real guard dies.
So do you know how they created the illusion of two identical security guards? They hired identical twins. Maybe it's me, but I don't think that qualifies as a "special visual effect". Cameron did that in Titanic, too. To create the illusion of an enormous ship sinking, he built an enormous ship and then sunk it. The man's a genius.
So now the portly security guard is, in reality, the Evil Terminator, and there is suspense because Sarah's desperately trying to pick the lock of her cell with only two halves of paperclip. The face-licking orderly, on his rounds, discovers a broken mop seconds before Sarah shows up with the other half with which to pummel him. It's none of my business, but she should focus less on the revenge-pummeling and more on the generally-escaping.
She logically stashes the orderly's body in her cell and grabs his key ring. Running down the hallway, she generates another annoying foley-related mistake. Someone felt it necessary to bring to my attention the fact that she's running in bare feet, but the sounds are those of someone in shoes. Great. Like I need that.
The T-1000 has tired, somewhere along the way, of being a portly security guard when it could be sleek and creepy Officer Robert.
Sarah comes upon an orderly and Dr. Condescending. She quickly and efficiently beats them into submission (claiming, along the way, that there are 215 bones in the human body), and then fills a syringe with drain cleaner.
Outside the hospital, John and Arnold pull up. Arnold reluctantly promises not to kill anyone, so he shoots the first security guard he sees in both legs. "He'll live," he says. Oh, the hilarity.
Sarah successfully hostages her way through a couple of doors, but makes the cardinal mistake of walking backwards through a corridor. Hero Orderly jumps out, grabs the syringe, and gets knocked down for his trouble. She takes off down the hall while some jerk starts the Escaped Patient Alarm. My day was going fine without an Escaped Patient Alarm, you know. At no point was I thinking "You know what would go great right about now? WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP! That's what I need!"
I can't tell for sure, but it sounds like bare feet to me when she runs. But who am I to doubt the word of anonymous mistake-finders on the internet? Sarah gets two doors ahead of the posse, then breaks a key off in a lock. She thinks she's safe when an elevator opens, but it's Arnold! Unlike the rest of us, Sarah didn't see the movie when it came out ten years ago, or she'd realize that Arnold's the good guy. Instead, she freaks out in a way entirely appropriate for someone in a mental institution. Hero orderly makes a diving tackle when she turns to run, but Arnold disposes of the posse. John tries to convince Sarah that he's here to help. Arnold says "Come with me if you want to live," which is just one of the lines in the commercials that ruined the whole effect of thinking that Arnold was the bad guy.
Anyway, this is getting slow, so Officer Robert oozes through some bars, chases the Family Connor (plus Arnold) into an elevator, and then turns his hands into a cool elevator-door prying-apart device. Unfortunately for him, Arnold turns his shotgun into an Officer-Robert head-popping device. Robert reforms his head, rips open the doors, and chases the elevator down the shaft. Arnold fires several shotgun blasts in the general direction of "up" while a big blade pokes randomly down from the ceiling. Sarah borrows Arnold's pistol and joins in, while John provides reloads. It's nice to see a family enjoying an activity together.
Making it to the parking lot, the Good Guys hijack a police car and peel out, while Officer Robert chases them. That's really a good-looking run he's got. He should be on Baywatch. Arnold drives the police car backward while he and Sarah fire guns at Officer Robert. John, in the back seat, reloads and gives helpful information like "last one". I'm actually quite impressed by how efficient he is at it. He must have learned a lot from all those ex-military guys his mother...um, never mind. Ew.
Out in the parking lot, Arnold gets the police car turned around, and they make it to the open road. Unfortunately for them, Officer Robert has turned his hands into clampy things and has latched onto the back bumper. Arnold tells Sarah to drive and leans out the window to blow Officer Robert away with his shotgun. That's "away" as in "off the car", not "away" as in "dead". It's far too early in the movie for that.
Having escaped the evil robot for the moment, Sarah takes a moment to hug her son. Then she rips into him for being so stupid as to try to rescue her. Parents, right?
Arnold notices that John is crying, and asks "What's wrong with your eyes?" Dude. Come on. Nobody cries in the future?
Back at the wreckage outside the hospital, a motorcycle cop rolls up and asks Officer Robert if everything is okay. "Fine. Say, that's a nice bike," is the response. See what's happened here? Now Arnold's driving a police car and Officer Robert's going to be on a motorcycle. They've switched vehicles! I don't know what that means, exactly, but it seems like it should mean something.
The Connors stash their stolen police car in a stolen garage, and Arnold starts sewing up thing big ugly wound Sarah has on her back. He claims to have extensive files on human anatomy, which makes me wonder why he's never heard of "tear ducts". Sarah then goes behind Arnold with a pair of pliers and extracts many, many bullets. In the course of small talk, we learn that Arnold's CPU is a neural-net processor, which means he has the capability to learn. Which means that we're going to have to put up with some scenes of John "teaching" Arnold. I am so not looking forward to those.
Arnold stands watch all night (while Sarah watches him suspiciously), then breaks into a station wagon in the morning. So the whole parallelism-of-vehicles theme is a bust, since they're quite sensibly ditching the stolen police car. John gloats quite a bit when Arnold hotwires the newly-stolen car but ignores the keys behind the sun visor, and I silently root for Arnold to clock the annoying little twerp.
Arnold wants to get out of the city, so Sarah directs him to head south and keep to the speed limit. Arnold answers "Affirmative", which triggers a bout of "teach the robot hipster-speak" as John teaches him to say "no problemo", "eat me", and "hasta la vista, baby". Arnold looks unsure of this (allowing for the fact that he has no facial expression at this or any other point in the movie), but repeats the last phrase in a way guaranteed to make it onto T-shirts nationwide. The lingo training continues and I shudder to imagine a future where the only hope for humanity is a kid who thinks "chill out, dickwad" is the height of barbed wit.
The car stops at Cactus Jack's market, and there's a poignant moment where John sees two kids playing "I shot you/No you didn't" and reflects on the violence inherent to humanity. Well, when I say "poignant", I mean "in slow motion with sappy music", but you get the idea.
Since the movie has basically ground to a halt here, it's time for some more exposition. Arnold tells Sarah that Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson, director of Special Projects at Cyberdyne, is the person most responsible for building SkyNet, the computer that runs the robot army. Apparently, he's going to create a revolutionary new type of microprocessor in a few months, which will make Cyberdyne the largest supplier of military computer systems. Stealth bombers will become fully unmanned, and on August 4, 1997, SkyNet goes online. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense, SkyNet learns "at a geometric rate", whatever that means, and it becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM Eastern Time, August 29. The technicians pull the plug, Sky Net launches missiles in self-defense, Russia fires missiles back, and things generally go downhill for the planet.
Arnold has detailed files on Dyson, so Sarah wants to know everything about him: what he looks like, where he lives, if he sleeps. No, sorry, that last part's from Dangerous Liaisons. I got distracted, I guess. The car pulls up in the middle of a desert full of hollowed-out military-looking things. Sarah gets out and looks at a ratty couch, trailer, and helicopter before calling for Enrique. Enrique's got a shotgun!
After a brief standoff, Enrique and Sarah exchange some Spanish banter and a hug. Enrique calls Yolanda and some kids out of a bus, and there's a general reunion. Enrique would like to know who the big guy is, and John alleges that he's part of the family. This is going to cause some confusion, I know, but the name John gives for Arnold is Uncle Bob. I don't think I can call him that with a straight face, so I'll stick with "Arnold", if you don't mind.
"Uncle Bob, huh? Okayyyy," grins Enrique, who finds the pseudonym about as convincing as I do.
Enrique offers Arnold some tequila, but he's too busy standing there looking cool. That can take a lot of energy, you know. Sarah has no problem, though, with grabbing the bottle and swigging away.
Anyway, weird Mexican reunions aside, Sarah's just here to pick up her "stuff". In bunkers disguised below the earth, she's got quite the armory of heavy weapons. She's also changed into a black tank top and BDUs so she can try to look as cool as Arnold. She doesn't quite, though, which is why she has the presence of mind to tell Enrique that she'll be crossing the border after dark.
Back in the underground weapons bunker (which I covet desperately), John is droning on about his upbringing, thinking all kids everywhere had cool concealed vaults full of enormous weapons. Speaking of which, Arnold's found a minigun, which I think is supposed to be mounted on a vehicle. He gives a fairly awkward-looking half-smile, which he must have learned from John, who gives him one right back. On John, it looks like he's too cool to smile with his whole face. On Arnold, it looks like he's flexing one of his cheek muscles.
Sarah's added a cigarette and shades to her outfit as she works on a rifle. Arnold works on their new truck while John goes on and on about his mother's various squeezes. Apparently, when she'd start talking about Judgment Day and how her kid was destined to be a world leader, the men would sneak out. Just like a man. Am I right, ladies? Huh? Can I get a -- okay, I'm kind of making myself sick over here. Let's skip it.
Oh God. Arnold has just asked "Why do you cry?" That's all we need here is another robot with a Pinocchio complex. John doesn't have any deep explanation for the general process of pain. And then we move on to John teaching Arnold to "gimme five". All I'm saying is that I prefer those parts of the movie that aren't The Story Of An Annoying Kid And His Pet Robot Killing Machine.
Sarah watches the festivities and starts to voice-over how a Terminator would always protect John, never get drunk, never hit him, and always be there. And it would die to protect him. "Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice." You know what a better choice would have been? Changing the kid's name. Seriously. Tell him he can change his name to "John Connor" at eighteen, but until then his name is "Benvolio Johnson". And then the Terminators would never find him. See? Much saner than deciding that the unstoppable killing machine would make a nice dad.
While Sarah digs into a picnic table with her Large Knife and watches Arnold, John, and Enrique load the truck with killin' supplies, she watches Enrique's family and gets misty-eyed. And who can blame her with the sun shining through the dust and that same supposedly-poignant music playing. She rests her head on her arm and closes her eyes.
Suddenly, and for no reason, she's walking up to a chain-link fence next to a playground. Yay! This movie has recess! But it's just for the kids; I don't get to play four-square or play on the bars or nothin'. Man. Anyway, Sarah goes up to the fence to look at the kids and their slow-motion poignancy. She screams, but no one can hear her. The sound of her hitting the fence is pretty loud, though. And then there's a nuclear explosion that sets everyone on fire and there's screaming and death. The shockwave rips through the city, busting things up like nobody's business, and Sarah wakes up gasping. It turns out that she carved the words "NO FATE" into the table.
Later, she busts out of a trailer, wearing a bandolier and military cap and carrying an assault rifle, and gets into their stolen car, rather than the truck that's been being loaded all day. John chases after her, but she's gone.
At the table, John puts the pieces together: his father (from the last movie, who he sent back to protect his own mother in 1984) told her that there was "no fate but what we make," which Old John made him memorize as a message to her. The whole message is "The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves." Arnold concludes that she intends to change the future, and they realize that she's going after Dyson. John screeches that they have to go after her. Arnold thinks it's tactically dangerous, but John doesn't care. That's what I look for in a military leader: someone who doesn't care what's tactically dangerous. Maybe Sarah should have sat the kid down with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz instead of teaching him how to steal from ATMs.
The reason, by the way, that John wants to stop her, is because Killing is Wrong. If that's the moral of this movie, they sure blow a lot of things up to get there.
In the Dyson household the child Dyson is playing with a remote control car, which goes down some steps and into Dr. Dyson's work area. There's a bright red dot on the back of Dyson's head when the car bumps into his ankle, causing him to bend over. Sarah's shot hits his monitor. After another sniper-style shot misses, Sarah switches to automatic fire and just fills the room with lead. Two full clips later, she walks in with a pistol to finish the job. She takes him down with a shot to his shoulder, at which point Mrs. Dyson and the kid see what's going on. Young Dyson begs her not to shoot his daddy, but she gets him out of the way and orders all non-Doctor Dysons to the floor.
Dyson tries to ask what's going on, but she tells him to shut up (four times) and insists that it's all his fault, that she won't let him do it, and so on. He, meanwhile, looks remarkably inoffensive lying there bleeding on the coffee table. She starts to squeeze the trigger, but has a sudden attack of not-wanting-to-kill-the-innocent-man.
As Arnold and John burst in, she's sagging against the wall. John hugs her and insists that it's going to be okay. Arnold stops Dyson's bleeding, but Dyson still has some perfectly normal questions, starting with "Who are you people?"
John hands Arnold a knife, tells him to "show him", and takes Danny (that's the littlest Dyson) out of the scene. Tell me something. If you were a kid and your father had just had his office shot up, not to mention his shoulder, by some woman who's nearly catatonic in the corner and a big Austrian and a floppy-haired kid came in to talk to her, how would you react to the floppy-haired kid saying "Danny? Danny, I want you to come with me right now, okay? Show me your room"? Because I think I'd be more than a little creeped out, but John seems to be trying to calm the kid down.
The Dysons are terrified when Arnold starts digging the knife into his forearm, and don't seem at all calmed down when he rips off the skin to show off his robot skeleton. Mrs. Dyson keeps screaming, although Dr. Dyson soon recognizes it. "Now listen to me very carefully," says Arnold, and suddenly we're in the dining room. Sarah voice-overs that "Dyson listened while The Terminator laid it all down. SkyNet. Judgment Day. The history of things to come. It's not every day you find out you're responsible for three billion deaths. He took it pretty well."
Dyson says, "I think I'm gonna throw up." Then he asks how he was supposed to know something like that would happen.
Sarah is disgusted. "Right. How were you supposed to know. Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something. To create a life. To feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death. Destruction." "Mom! We need to be a little more constructive here, okay?" Right on, John.
Dyson offers to quit Cyberdyne tomorrow, but that's not good enough for Sarah. So he offers to destroy all his work and research. But! There's the chip in the vault at Cyberdyne. The CPU from the first Terminator. All of Dyson's work was based on the future technology they found in the chip. Arnold says it must be destroyed. Sarah wants to get in past security. When? Now.
There's more voice-over on the way to Cyberdyne, but I'm getting kind of tired of Sarah's raspy monotone. The four of them walk into the spacious Cyberdyne atrium, and Dyson banters (poorly) with Security Guard Carl. Carl doesn't want to allow visitors in the lab, but when it turns out they have guns and duct tape, there isn't much he can do about it. They should have hid the body better than tossing it in the men's room, because Security Guard Gibbons finds him right away and sets off a silent alarm. Dyson's card suddenly won't open the locker where the Required Second Security Key to the vault is kept. John's ATM-cracking device will open it, though. He tells the others to proceed to Dyson's lab and start smashing stuff while he gets in here.
The security guards in the lobby are on the phone to the police describing the intruders and telling them to send everything they've got. Dyson's able to get into his lab (even though all the locks have been shut down because of the silent alarm) because he has a "personal entry code." No, that doesn't work. But Arnold's ridiculously explosive weapon works fine. It also sets off the Halon fire extinguishing gas, so he brings out a pair of breathing apparatus for Sarah and Dyson.
At the Dyson home, Officer Robert studies the carnage while his police radio tells him about the people breaking into Cyberdyne. I have to compliment the security guards on the remarkably accurate descriptions they must have given, because the radio knows that one of the suspects is Connor Comma Sarah. So I guess they must have fed the description into the police database and gotten an exact match, right? Or driven over some mug books to get a positive ID?
Many police show up outside Cyberdyne, including a SWAT team van and a helicopter, which uses its searchlight to scan through the windows. The massing of forces suggests that there will be another action sequence soon.
Inside, John's ATM-cracking device has worked, and he has the second key they'll need to get into the vault, but he sees the helicopter outside, and accurately concludes that this is "not good." In the lab, barrels of DANGER: FLAMMABLE are being wired up when John shows up. "Police?" "Yeah." "How many?" "All of 'em, I think." Heh. Sarah will finish planning the detonation, and Arnold will take care of the police, although apparently he won't be killing anybody.
Kicking a desk through a window, he walks into the beam of a searchlight with his mini-gun. Surprisingly, he does not obey the order to lay down his weapon, choosing instead to shoot up all the police cars in the parking lot. The rain of bullets chases the various police out of the way, and he uses his Improbably Big Exploding Gun to blow up a few cars. His computer-vision informs him there were no human casualties, and he casually walks away from the window, ignoring the covering fire.
Dyson and John turn their keys at the same time and open the vault, revealing the magical chip and the robot arm. John breaks some stuff and they leave with the goodies.
The SWAT team enters the building with breathers and guns. Arnold observes that it's time to go as Dyson looks sad at the prospect of blowing up his life's work. He picks up the detonator just as the SWAT team bust in and riddle him with bullets. Arnold and John are just outside the lab (on the other side from the SWAT team), but Sarah's still in there, hiding behind a desk. Dyson is on the ground, shot up but still holding the detonator. Sarah fires off a few rounds to get their attention and runs out. She ends up in a room with no exits, but Arnold conveniently walks through the wall to get her. He blows through a big metal door, and the three of them leave.
Arnold, John, and Sarah get into an elevator. Dyson is left in the lab as the SWAT team creep in. He's hyperventilating, because he's holding a heavy object immediately above the detonator. The SWAT team wisely scrambles, and Dyson dies. Kaboom. The parking lot is full of fire and smoke. And here comes Officer Robert in his mirror shades.
The elevator reaches the first floor, and the SWAT team sends in a gas grenade when Arnold steps out. Sarah and John share a breather while Arnold goes out to deal with the problem. This, by the way, is the time that he says "Stay here. I'll be back." Is that the lamest catchphrase ever or what?
He walks out of the smoke, ignoring the orders to lie on the floor, face down. The various officers riddle him with bullets, exposing metal, but he keeps walking. He takes out a pistol and shoots each officer in a leg until he gets to the grenade-thrower, which he uses to dispose of the last two in the lobby, as well as secure the parking lot. Then he walks around, taking people's gas masks until he gets to the SWAT van. This time, instead of hotwiring it, he finds the spare keys hidden above the sun visor. Then he drives the van into the spacious atrium, all the way back to the elevator. Sarah and John get in, and it's time to leave.
Officer Robert has driven up to the third floor on his police motorcycle when he sees the van race off. The helicopter is hovering at just the right height for him to drive through the window and jump onto the copter. He breaks the windshield with his head and oozes in all liquid-metally. Once he's in the copilot seat, he tells the pilot to "Get out." The pilot, knowing what happens to no-name extras who don't know their place, promptly jumps out. And Officer Robert is off after the van.
Sarah wants John to stay under the bulletproof vests in the van, and she's trying to use some to block the window. Arnold identifies the copter as "him", so Sarah takes advantage of the numerous assault rifles on the wall. Unfortunately for her, there's a gun in the helicopter as well. Somewhere around here, Officer Robert supposedly has extra arms so he can control the helicopter and fire a rifle at the same time, but I've never seen it myself.
The helicopter follows the van at extremely low altitude, even flying underneath an overpass. This part of the movie is a lot like a videogame. Even more so if, like me, you're watching the DVD on your Playstation 2 and pausing it every few seconds. It's requiring a serious effort of will not to hit the fire button.
Oh, there it is -- Officer Robert is reloading his gun and has a third on the control stick. Whoopee. I only mention it because people keep talking about that scene. I have to tell you, it's not that great.
There's gunfire and chasing and stuff. Sarah gets shot in the leg, causing John to be sad. Arnold hits the brakes and the helicopter slams into the van. Does the helicopter explode? Of course it does. Something happens to one of the van's tires, and Arnold is unable to maintain control. It starts sliding and tips over. Then it slides some more.
A truck full of liquid nitrogen is forced to stop on the freeway due to the flaming helicopter wreckage in the lanes. The driver is shocked to see Officer Robert walking around. "Are you all right?" is his only line before he's skewered.
As John, Arnold, and Sarah struggle out of the overturned van, a fellow driver has stopped his pickup truck to ask if they're hurt. They're too distracted by the sight of the nitrogen truck coming at them to answer. They just stare at the truck. They keep staring, no expression on their motionless faces. Oh, hold on. I forgot to unpause the movie.
There we go. The three of them take the guy's pickup and get the heck out of there. At least you didn't die, pal. John puts pressure on Sarah's leg wound as the truck gains on them. The pickup's top speed is just below 65 mph, and the nitrogen truck is able to rear-end them, and then toss them around like rag dolls. Arnold tells John to drive while he leans out and uses his Super-Exploding Gun to provide covering fire. They take the off-ramp and get chased into the inevitable Big Generic Factory Setting.
The truck now appears to be attached to the back of the pickup, so Arnold can hop out, run along the top of his own vehicle, climb up on the hood of Officer Robert's ride, and shoot Officer Robert up with a semiautomatic rifle. Arnold reaches in through the now-shattered windshield and cranks the steering wheel, causing the truck to jackknife. He manages to get off before the truck, full of liquid nitrogen, hits part of the Generic Factory Setting.
The pickup, meanwhile, has passed a large vat of red-hot molten metal before crashing into a different part of the GFS. The nitrogen is running all over the place, looking all smoky and atmospheric as the extras clear the set.
John, Sarah, and Arnold, all looking pretty beat-up, watch as Officer Robert gets out of the truck and jumps to the ground, getting bathed in liquid nitrogen. There's cracking noises as he walks, and it's apparent that what was once made of "liquid metal" is quickly freezing and is now made of "solid, fairly brittle metal." He falls down as his legs stop working, and shatters when Arnold (saying "Hasta la vista, baby") shoots him with a pistol.
If you think that's the end of the movie, I have a poem which I'd like to read to you:
Some say Terminator 2 will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of the way unkillable movie villains always come back after you think you've killed them the first time
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it didn't have to perish twice,
I think I know enough of futuristic time-traveling robotics
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
And, in fact, the molten metal is running all over the place, melting the pieces back down into liquid metal while Arnold says "We don't have much time." They ooze together like blobs of mercury, which is the only metal that comes to mind that's a liquid at room temperature. The Evil Terminator was made of mercury? Couldn't just touching him give you brain damage? Is that how they got the script?
The bits run together and John has to help Sarah, who was shot in the leg in the van. Officer Robert is fully reformed by the time the good guys limp off. This time, he's not running, but walking steadily and creepily. Arnold seems to know which way to go, and he leads the humans through various mechanical and technical parts of the GFS, all of which seem to be subject to random showers of sparks. They have to turn back when they almost walk into a big vat of molten metal (that crybaby Sarah says it's "too hot"). Arnold tells the humans to run along; he'll handle Officer Robert himself.
Arnold stands ready for Officer Robert with his Exploding Gun and pistol, but there is no Officer Robert to be seen. Until he jumps out of the shadows and throws the shotgun aside. And then it's time for some hot, robot-on-robot action. They throw each other into various big metal objects and there's a neat scene where Officer Robert is thrown face-first into a wall. And instead of turning around, it's faster for him just to morph his back into his front. Then, when Arnold punches him in his face, he turns his head more liquid than normal to capture the hand and forms a new head over to the side. This is where all that "he's made of liquid metal" stuff is paying off.
Arnold's arm gets caught by a big gear, because there's always big unprotected gears in a Generic Factory Setting. Officer Robert considers him immobilized and moves on.
John and Sarah climb a catwalk to a platform, which seems like it would strand them when Officer Robert comes looking. Arnold uses a handy crowbar-looking thing, possibly a crowbar, to rip off his immobilized arm and get back into the action.
Look! There's Officer Robert coming up to join them on the platform; I told them not to go up there! Sarah sends John down a chain into a big gear-thing, and pulls out a gun that she hopes will help her deal with Officer Robert. If that big hole in his head didn't do it, I think you're in trouble, ma'am. Yup. Having a big spike through your shoulder is "trouble", all right.
"I know this hurts. Call John" menaces Officer Robert as he extends his other hand into a spike and threatens Sarah's eyeballs. She won't do it, and even though she's being very tough, you have to think she's relieved when Arnold shows up and cuts Robert in half with his big crowbar-looking thing.
More robot fighting. Arnold gets pretty well pounded and half his face comes off. He drags himself forward with his one working arm, trying to reach his gun, but he gets spiked to the floor by Officer Robert. The creepy red light in Arnold's eyes goes out.
Then it comes back on again, because he's got "alternate power." He pulls the spike through his body and gets the gun.
John is exhausted when he hears Sarah yelling for help. He gets up and goes to find her. There she is, and she looks awful. But right behind her is the real Sarah! You know how they made it look like there were two Linda Hamiltons there? They used Linda Hamilton's actual identical twin sister. Again, not really a "special effect" so much as "careful casting."
The real Sarah has a shotgun. John gets out of the way and she starts firing. Did I mention that they're on a high platform above an enormous vat of molten metal?
Sarah takes several shots, each one pushing Officer Robert (because he quit looking like Sarah once the real one showed up) closer to the edge. Finally, he's about to fall, and she cocks the gun for one final blast...and she's out of ammunition.
Officer Robert heals up the holes in his torso and looks at her. He waggles his finger in a "no you don't" gesture, and Arnold appears on some big conveyer-belt thing. He shoots at Officer Robert with his Big Explody Gun, which causes Officer Robert's torso to pop open before he topples over into the molten metal. He thrashes around, screeching and turning into the various people he's imitated before he finally just melts. What a world, what a world.
John goes to help the horribly wounded Arnold. "I need a vacation" says Arnold, which really makes no sense. The three survivors look down into the vat of metal, and John tosses in the arm and chip from Cyberdyne. Arnold points out that there's one more chip (in his head!) and it must be destroyed also. Sarah has to lower him into the vat. John throws a perfectly understandable fit as the perfect-father-figure-slash-coolest-toy-ever prepares to destroy itself.
What? What did Arnold just say? "I know now why you cry"? God. Sarah, hurry up. I'll lower him in myself if he doesn't stop talking like that. Aww. One final hug from John. And a handshake from Sarah. I'll forgive him. Just this once. But if he says anything else stupid on his way into the metal, forget it. As he goes under he gives John a thumbs-up, and the computer-vision shuts down. John takes it hard.
More voice-over from Sarah, about the value of human life. Close credits. Play that Guns 'n' Roses song again. Wonder where to submit a chit for two and a half hours of wasted life.