I just recently re-watched TERMINATOR 2:JUDGMENT DAY (1991) to try to get some understanding as to why SO MANY movie fans think that it is the best of the Terminator films and having seen it, it is worse than I thought! I was sure that I would at least think T2 was good enough to rate closely to it's predecessor T1 and boy was I mistaken! I first saw T2 back in the early 90s and it really didn't blow me away even back then. But that was more due to the fact that I had suffered sequel overload during that time (DIE HARD 2 and LETHAL WEAPON 2 being the main culprits, both of which I loved at the time and can't stand now!), but also that I was more into Arnold Schwarzenegger movies (three Arnie action classics PREDATOR-1987, RUNNING MAN-1988, and TOTAL RECALL-1990 had just come out) than I was into Terminator movies. I just wanted to see an Arnie action film! I know the Terminator is supposedly different from the typical Arnie flick, but I wasn't fully aware of this at the time. In retrospect, I understand better what the Terminator films encompass.
With T2, I kind of got an Arnie action film, but not really; it's more of a James Cameron film, which for me, is not really a good thing. I think Cameron is perhaps the most overrated director in modern film history! In T2, Arnie's T800 is really only a nominal (although above the title credits) character; and plays 2nd fiddle to Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton, who overemotes mightily in this) and 10-year old John Connor (an annoying Edward Furlong) and acts as their protector from the T1000. Robert Patrick plays the T1000, whose liquid metal configuration is a cool (if unbelievable) creation. Patrick is actually pretty good in his limited screen time and definitely exudes menace, but the fear of his character is derived more from his seemingly invincible design (backed up by some incredible, groundbreaking CGI) than the actor himself. In T1, we saw Schwarzenegger's T800 bit by bit lose his "humanity" to reveal the creature underneath (with the aid of puppetry and stop-motion animation) and that was a lot scarier.
The T2 supporting cast ranges from very weak (John's foster parents, who weren't even REMOTELY curious as to why a huge German-accented leather-clad biker was looking for John!) to inconsequential (Sarah's Mexican friend that helped hide them out), but not all their fault as they aren't operating with much of a script. Also, I found myself cringing at certain scenes, and for the wrong reasons! A major example would be the poorly executed (no pun intended) "key" scene when the heroic trio go after the T800 creator Dyson: When Arnie's T800 strips off the human skin on his robotic arm to prove their story to Dyson, the bug-eyed reactions of Dyson and his wife were way over-the-top. But the worst part of that scene was Sarah's overly melodramatic crisis of conscience about killing Dyson; Hamilton's acting during that scene was really bad. Contrast an ineffectual manipulative "Hollywood" scene like this one to the more "naturalistic" character reactions in T1, which wasn't made with some studio bigwigs getting in the way of the director's vision. Also, I thought the whole Dyson subplot to be kind of tacked on.
Arnie's one-liners (which shouldn't even really exist in a movie like this) come off as mostly stale due to a painfully weak, by-the-numbers script. I couldn't believe how poor the dialogue was when I saw this again recently! Not really even an attempt at realism or humor. The dialogue serves as filler material to either try to be cute with silly catchphrases (and dated ones at that) or to pontificate unnecessarily about nuclear war and the fate of humanity. T1 didn't have such waste in it, cutting to the chase (literally) and even the expository dialogue and scenes were PART OF the action, rather than being separate from it like in T2.
James Cameron is not really one of my favorite directors (although I think T1 is perhaps the best sci-fi action film of all time), but he did a tremendous job of helping to usher in a new era of special effects with T2 (major reason why I'm at least giving it 3 stars!). The 20-year old effects are still very eye-catching indeed and top even a lot of the current CGI in movies now. But the main problem with the effects is, as previously alluded to, with the logic behind the makeup Patrick's T1000 character. Are we supposed to accept at face value that such an unlikely creation from the not-so-distant future is even possible? Yeah, it's cool, but it's there as simply an excuse for action and to wow us with advanced effects, whereas in T1, Arnie's T800 was an actual CHARACTER! When it comes to CGI vs. character, give me character anyday!
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