Batman and Robin "This is why Superman works alone!"

Right OK usually on this blog I like to review films that are of good quality and have many redeeming aspects to them.  However after reviewing The Room and having so much fun writing it I figured it was time I looked at some other bad movies and I thought why not go for a real stinker.  So this post will be on what is widely regarded as one of the worst movies of all time and that is Batman and Robin as directed by Joel Schumacher.

So let's look at this frozen turkey of a film and see if it is as bad as they say....

STORY

OK so about the story which begins with the story's main villain, Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who steals a cache of diamonds.  Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) soon alerts Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O'Donnell) to the scene of where the crime is taking place and they show up and chase after Freeze only to fail to capture him.  On researching a bit more about Freeze, Bruce Wayne (also Clooney of course) finds out that his real name is Victor Fries and he was once a scientist who suffered an accident in a cryogenics lab and since then he has had to wear a diamond-powered subzero suit to keep him alive.  Freeze however had also at the time been working on a cure to try and treat his wife who is suffering from a terminal illness called MacGregor's Syndrome.   

In the meantime a botanist named Dr Pamela Isley (Uma Thurman) experiments with a strength serum to mutate plants so they can fight back against mankind.  Isley however is angered by her senior colleague Dr Jason Woodrue (John Glover) as she discovers that he has been using her serum which he has nicknamed "Venom" and uses it on a skinny prisoner which transforms him into a masked muscle man and super soldier, Bane (Robert "Jeep" Swenson).  Isley soon confronts Woodrue over his misuse of her serum and when she refuses to partner with him, Woodrue attempts to kill Isley by pushing her into a load of animal-plant toxins and chemicals.  However Isley soon is ressurected as the seductive and beautiful Poison Ivy and she kills Woodrue with a poisonous kiss from her lips and afterward announces her intention to have plant life take over the world.

Meanwhile a young girl named Barbara Wilson (Alicia Silverstone) turns up at Wayne manor who turns out to be the niece of Bruce's butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Gough) and she is invited to stay at the manor, however while Barbara is there she sneaks off at night with a motorbike.  Later on Ivy arrives in Gotham city with Bane at her side as her bodyguard and she interrupts a Wayne enterprises conference at Gotham observatory where a giant telescope is being unveiled.  Ivy challenges Bruce to use his fortune to safeguard the natural environment at the expense of millions of human lives, which Bruce refuses to do but he instead gives her an invite to Gotham's botanical gardens fundraiser where he says Batman and Robin will be attending.  Ivy turns up at the fundraiser in a sexy outfit she uses her pheromone dust to seduce everyone including Batman and Robin, who are in fact there to lure Freeze to the place so they can capture him.

And its not too long before Freeze shows up and causes chaos at the event but he is eventually captured by Batman, however Ivy is taken by Freeze's ruthless nature and she soon rescues him from his cell at Arkham Asylum.  Freeze tells Ivy of his wife and that they must move her as he has her kept in cryogenic sleep but Ivy turns off her life support and later lies to Freeze that Batman killed her by deactivating it.  This enrages Freeze who vows to take his revenge over Batman and Gotham by freezing the city using the telescope as a giant freeze ray, which will allow Ivy to regrow the Earth with her mutant plants.  Meanwhile we also learn that Alfred is dying from the same disease that Freeze's wife has and Barbara with Alfred's help soon discovers the Batcave thanks to an encoded disc he gave her, which reveals a digital message that he also designed a suit for her to join Batman and Robin to fight crime as Batgirl.  And its from here the three of them must work together to prevent Freeze and Ivy from carrying out their nefarious plan.......

THOUGHTS

There is little doubt that Batman and Robin easily ranks as the worst of all of the Batman films ever put on screen.  Joel Schumacher previously directed the average Batman Forever which was a commerical success however and as such based on the popularity of that film he was brought back to direct this one.  However I'm sure this is one film I bet he wished he hadn't directed and after the film was lambasted by the critics he even went on to apologise to the fans afterward for it.  And even the cast lashed out at how bad it was received as George Clooney who played Batman in the film even went as far as to say that he felt the film was a "waste of money" and that "I think we have killed the franchise".  Schumacher himself did say at the time of the film's release that he felt it was a good idea to keep the film family-friendly and to get away from the dark and more tortured potrayals of Batman in the past.  And there is not much doubt that the film does keep up the rather camp and light tone of Batman Forever but here is exaggerates it even further than necessary.

PERFORMANCES

Performance wise it has to be said that this film is not great as despite its surprisingly good cast most of them are given virtually nothing to work with.  Starting with George Clooney who was woefully miscast here as Batman/Bruce Wayne and he even looks uncomfortable playing the part in the film himself.  Clooney who is of course a fine actor (even though he can't stop wobbling his head when he speaks!) is reduced to playing the part in a rather one dimensional way and his attempts at comedy in the film are pretty forced looking.  Clooney does still have the odd amusing moment in the film such as the scene where Ivy attempts to seduce Batman for the umpteenth time with her pheromone spray and shakes his head saying "Why are all the gorgeous ones homicidal maniacs?!".  And there is the scene at the start of the film where Batman and Robin suit up (complete with ridiculous close-ups of the outfits assess, legs and even suit nipples!).  And afterwards Robin turns to Batman and says "I want a car.  Chicks dig the car!" and Batman groans saying "This is why Superman works alone!".  And lastly there is the scene which left alot of Batman fans in a state of outrage where Batman and Robin at the fundraiser event bid over Poison Ivy and as they try and outbid each other Batman pulls out his Bat credit card and says "Never leave the cave without it!".  It is a truly cringeworthy moment but I have to say it is funny in its own awful way.

Next up there is Arnold Schwarzenegger as Freeze even though he is credited as the top billing I thought he deserves to be put second her as it is a Batman film after all!  Arnie never was a great actor and will always be limited by Austrian accent but believe it or not his performance is actually not bad here as Mr Freeze (yep I need my head checked!) and even if he is working with piss poor material he still seems to be enjoying himself here.  But it has to be said that Arnie does deliver some truly awful and silly one-liners that are mostly all connected in some way to ice!  Still Arnie has some fun moments also such as the scene where Batman and Robin first show up at the start of the film and Freeze says to Batman "You're not sending ME to the cooler!".  Then there is the scene where Freeze sits with his wife who is in a cryogenic glass chamber whilst he watches their wedding video one of Freeze's henchman walks and interrupts him and Freeze angrily grabs his freeze gun and turns the henchman into a block of ice and he says "I hate it when they talk during the movie!".  Another amusing moment is when Freeze gatecrashes the fundraiser and says "Right everbody!  Chill!" and he starts randomly freezing people with his ice gun.  And in the scene Freeze approaches Ivy who tries to use her pheromones on him but to no avail as Freeze tells her "I'm afraid it doesn't work on the cold hearted!  Let me guess, Plant Girl? Vine Lady? Huh? Hand over the diamond Garden Gal, or I'll turn you into mulch!".  And then there is the scene where (SPOILER BUT WHO CARES RIGHT??!!) after Batman has defeated Freeze near the end he tells him that Freeze's wife is still alive and that he can continue to try and work on a cure for her and if he could help him to cure Alfred.  And out of gratitude for saving his wife, Freeze gives Batman two small tubes of liquid, which is presumably the cure for the early stage of MacGregor's disease and says to him "Take two of these and call me in the morning!".

Uma Thurman fairs pretty well in her role as the beautiful but deadly Poison Ivy and she nails the seductiveness of her character well enough and Uma even affects a pretty decent RP English accent.  Uma however falls foul of the same cack dialogue as the rest of the cast but she still has some amusing moments, such as the scene where Ivy fights with Batgirl and says "As I told Lady Freeze when I pulled her plug, this is a one woman show!".  And then there is the scene where Batman and Robin get carried away as they bid over Ivy and she says "You two boys aren't going to start fighting over little old me, now are you?!".  And lastly of course there is the moment in the scene where Ivy fights Batgirl that Batgirl kicks Ivy into one of her big plants and Ivy cries out "CURSES!" just as the plant consumes her.

Chris O'Donnell reprising his role as Robin/Dick Grayson is OK in the part but he essentially plays Robin as a whiny git who most of the time is fed up playing second fiddle to Batman and he always moans about wanting to step into the limelight on his own.  And this often can make O'Donnell's performance a bit grating when all we hear is Robin bitch and moan and saying things like "I want a Robin sign put up!" and "Its always Batman and Robin, its never Robin and Batman!" and "That's it!  I'm going solo!".  Achh shut it!  Still O'Donnell does have the odd amusing moment in the film and the one that sticks out is when Barbara first turns up at Wayne manor and she rings the door bell and he takes a look at her and says "Please be looking for me!".  And then there is the scene where Dick follows Barbara out one night to a street race on motorbikes and he get's involved in the race which ends with Barbara's crashing her bike and nearly fall over the edge of a cliff and Dick manages to just catch her leg before she falls and he says hanging upside down "So THIS is where you hang out!".

Alicia Silverstone also does OK I guess with her role as Barbara Wilson/Batgirl but she too is given not much to work with and this film pretty much effectively killed her acting career in prominent movies and has since then appeared in some more lowbrow films and is now more accurately filed under the "where is she now?" field.  Alicia does have the odd good moment in the film however too such as the scene where she speaks to Dick about Alfred and she says "Don't you see how Alfred is trying to hide the pain all the time.  Alfred's sick".  And later on there is the scene where Batgirl fights Ivy and she says to her "Chicks like you give women a bad name!". 

And the last few I will mention are Michael Gough who in all honesty is better than all of them as Alfred Pennyworth and he actually manages to bring some charm to his role and although the film barely allows for it, some poignancy to Alfred's character especially as we discover he is suffering from the terminal illness that is MacGregor's syndrome.  John Glover also is not too bad as the somewhat camp and villainous Doctor Woodrue who meets his demise at the hands of Poison Ivy.  And Glover has a good moment (well if you want to call it that!) when he attempts to kill Pamela Isley in the event that would lead to her becoming Poison Ivy as she refuses to help him he says "Well, I can respect your opinion, Sadly I'm not good at rejection, I'm afraid you'll have to die!".  And last of all Robert "Jeep" Swenson fairs OK in his physical role as Bane but the character is giving a pretty poor representation here overall but I guess that's not really his fault.  Swenson himself a professional wrestler at the time, unfortunately died of a heart attack not long after filming was completed.

DIRECTION AND MUSIC

Well what can you say about the film's director???  It has to be said that Joel Schumacher had done a pretty poor job here as the film's pacing is at times a bit sluggish and inconsistent and the action is not very well staged either as the fight scenes are pretty cluttered looking.  Schumacher of course went overkill with the campness and he even includes cringeworthy close-up shots of Batman and Robin getting suited up as the camera zooms in on their asses, legs, arms and even the nipples on their suits!  Overall I think its safe to say that this is not one of the Joel Schumacher better directed films.  Music wise however the film features a surprisingly good score by the excellent composer Elliot Goldenthal and its a shame as the scores deserves to be in a much better film than this!  The film also features a pretty good song over the credits by the rock band The Smashing Pumpkins "The begining is the end is the beginning" which again is a shame it wasn't used in a better film.   

FLAWS

As Batman and Robin's flaws...... ha ha where to begin??!!  Well to begin it has to be that the film tries too hard to pay homage to the style of Batman 60's TVseries that it kills the spirit of the original Batman character which Tim Burton managed to nail successfully in the first Batman film, but by the time we've hit Batman and Robin the caped crusader has now degenerated into just a poor parody of himself.  The film also poorly deals with some of its other characters particularly Bane, who in the comics and also as depicted in The Dark Knight Rises is a ruthless and intelligent villain who had the brains and brawn to match Batman.  However here Bane is reduced to just a mindless henchman who obeys any orders given to him by Poison Ivy!  And Bane's character is reduced to just saying single words such as his name or something else and even in one scene he resorts to giving out very simple exposition as we see him plant some strange pointed iced devices at the observatory as he says "Bomb!" every time he plants one down, just so we know that it is in fact bombs that he IS planting!  Yeah OK Bane we get the idea.  You don't need to tell us its a bomb every time you set one down!

It also has to be said that the film's dialogue is pretty atrocious most of the time and it is filled with awful one-liners even though I've previously mentioned some of the less awful ones.  But there are some really daft lines such as the one near the beginning when Freeze says to Batman "What killed the dinosaurs?  The Ice age!!!" before freezing a full sized dinosaur model.  Then there are naff lines such as the one where Babara says to Dick about Alfred "I'm going to take him away from this single life of servitude!" as well as Robin at the start saying to Batman "I want a car!  Chicks dig the car!" yeah but do they dig you?! Not to mention O'Donnell's worst line ever when Robin in one scene surfs through the skies shouting out "Cowabunga!!".  Achh shut up!  Not to mention there are some real corny introduction lines such as the way that Batman introduces himself to Freeze at the start by saying "Hey Freeze!  I'm Batman!" as he slides down the model of the dinosaur.  Yes I'd guess Freeze knows who you are Batman you don't need to spell it out for him!

As for some of the film's plot holes..... well lol again where to begin?  For starters how does Freeze's ice gun have such a dramatic impact on collapsing structures such as walls and roofs?  It seems pretty stupid that it would have such an immediate and powerful effect such as in the scene when we see Freeze using the liquid cooling from his suit to freeze the pipes which breaks down a hole in the wall of his cell to allow him to escape with Ivy and Bane.  Not only that there is the scene where Freeze turns on the freezing temperatures in his hideout when Commissioner Gordon and his men arrive and they nearly freeze to death and Gordon struggles and crawls over to the panel with a lever which changes the temps back to normal and as soon as he does this his men instantly stand up as if nothing happened!  Yep that's Hollywood action movie logic for you! 

I also thought it was pretty stupid when Freeze attempts to freeze the whole city using the giant telescope as an ice gun that as Batman later says "they have 11 mintues to defrost the city!".  And in the time it takes that whole sequence to take place it seems to take a bit longer than 11 minutes from when Freezes starts to use the telescope.  And it also seems mighty convenient that Batman knows just how to realign the satelittes using the telescope to reverse the ice effects and use the sun to melt them and not only that even Barbara get's in on it as well as she seems to know just how to solve it too!

Another issue comes in the scene when Poison ivy kisses Robin and as she thinks her poision will have killed him he suddenly peels off the false rubber lips which protected him from her and he says "Rubber lips are immune to your charms!".  But at this point Robin is still in touching distance of Ivy so what is it to stop her form simply grabbing him and kissing him again, which would now surely result in his death as he has now removed his false lips!  And that way it would save her having to deal with Robin at all!

Also another stupid moment in the film comes from when Mr Freeze forces his freezing henchman to do a sing along in subzero temperatures at his hideout to the song of "I'm Mr White Christmas.  I'm Mr Snow".  I mean what the hell is the point of this scene??!  It is incredibly silly and serves no purpose whatsoever to the story other than say maybe that Freeze is a bit of a sadist and loves making his henchman work at pointless menial tasks in freezing temperatures!  Also I'm surprised his henchmen don't freeze to death in Freeze's hideout given the subzero temperatures.  And lastly also regarding Freeze when he turns up in Ivy's cell at the end of the film he is fully suited up again and he vows to make her life a living hell.  OK but how can he keep his suit fully powered for long?  Because surely he will need a supply of diamonds again and I'd imagine they only last for so long so he would probably need to rely on someone getting him so MORE diamonds to keep his suit going!  Again it doesn't really make much sense but then little does in this film.  

And another issue I have is with Barbara's character who engages in some seemingly pointless bike races which she later reveals she took up racing because "When my parents died, racing took the pain away".  Yeahhh OK.  And later there is the scene where Barbara tries to suss out the password for Alfred's encoded CD and she tries a variety of different passwords and ends up looking at a photo of Alfred's wife, Margaret, which has her nickname "Peg" written on it and she types it in and bingo!  She has full access to the confidential files on the location of the Batcave etc!  I mean Peg is not exactly a security conscious password is it???  And any hacker would have a pretty decent stab at that and it would be even spelt out for them on the picture so not much homework would be required!  Also given that Alfred in the film is suffering from such a life threatening illness I just wonder when he found the time to put together the Batgirl suit for her???  Its not like he took her measurements or anything at any point in the film!  And lastly regarding Barbara its rather ridiculous that neither Batman nor Robin recognised that its Barbara wearing an eye mask at first as it clearly her!  I mean duh!

Anyway that's me done looking at the flaws.

SUM UP

So to sum up Batman and Robin is a mess, is it one of the worst films of all time???  Well its definitely not a good one, in fact its pretty bad, but calling it one of the all time worst films might be a bit harsh.  But even though it is pretty naff overall it still does have some enjoyable moments here and there but at the end of the day it will forever be remembered morely as the film that nearly killed off the franchise and for that reason I can't really recommend it.  However its worth checking out only if you want a reminder of just how big a pile of guff it is, so all in all its a bad un.

So that's it for my look at Batman and Robin and I'll be back soon with another post.

Until then bye for now.

Terminator 2 Judgement day "Hasta la vista baby!"

Right well this is a revisit to one of my previous posts, Terminator 2: Judgement Day as I wanted to add a few extra things to it just for fun and make one or two new points about it that I didn't before.  I might also adjust the post a little and will try and not quote too many lines from the film like I haven done recently in a lot of my posts.

Anyway to quote Rob Reiner, enough of my yakkin, let's look at T2..... again..... and yes (as usual) PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD! 

STORY

OK starting with the usual stuff the story of the film begins back in 1995, where John Connor (Edward Furlong) is just a 10 year old boy, who at this time lives in Los Angeles with his foster parents.  John's mother Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) however has been sent to an asylum after she tried to blow up a computer factory, and is monitored by Dr Silberman (Earl Boen) from the first film.  Skynet in the future, still set on destroying the resistance, sends a new terminator back in time to kill the young John Connor, the terminator, a T-1000 model, is far more advanced than the T-800 model, which is composed of liquid metal and can imitate anyone it comes into contact with, as well morph its hands into stabbing weapons.  The T-1000 (Robert Patrick) assumes the identity of a police officer, and starts to track down John, but at the same time, the future resistance send back an older T-800 model Terminator (Arnie) to protect John.  Both terminators eventually track John to a mall, and they end both fighting each other, with John barely escaping on his motorbike.  The T-1000 chases John in a truck along the freeway and before he is run over, the T-800 rescues him, and shoots out one of the truck's tyres, causing to crash and explode, but the T-1000 soon emerges unharmed, as it morphs back into its normal form.

The T-800 (or Terminator as I will call him from now on!) then explains to John that his mission is to protect him and that he was sent by the future John.  The terminator tells John that the T-1000 in attempt to kill him, will wait for John to contact his mother, who he will assume her identity and kill her.  John orders the Terminator to help him avoid Sarah from being killed, and they soon rescue her from the maximum security hospital, as she was in the process of trying to escape herself, but they are soon intercepted by the T-1000 who gives them chase, but they escape.  John, Sarah and the Terminator then travel out south where Sarah meets with an old friend, who helped her during her resistance days.  Sarah during their stay has a terrible nightmare about the nuclear holocaust of Judgment day and this pre-empts her to go after the man responsible for creating Skynet, Miles Dyson (Joe Morton).  With the knowledge the Terminator has given Sarah, she travels out to Dyson's home and attempts to assassinate him, on entering his house however, on the verge of pulling the trigger, with Dyson's family around him, she can't bring herself to do it.  John and the Terminator soon arrive once they realise what Sarah is doing, and they tell Dyson about Judgment day and the future.  Dyson agrees to go to Cyberdyne labs with them to destroy his research, however they are soon surrounded by police, and as the police breach the building, they shoot Dyson, who holds the detonator, wired to blow up his research, on his dying breath he lets it go, and blows the labs up.

John, Sarah and the terminator manage to escape the Cyberdyne building, but they are pursued by the T-1000 who chases them on the freeway, and they eventually arrive at a steel mill, where they face the T-1000 in the final final confrontation.....

THOUGHTS 
 
After the surprise success of the original Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day had quite a bit to live up to, and for the most part it delivers on its promise in doing so.  At its time it was easily the most expensive film ever made, budgeting at just under $100 million dollars, and CGI just in its infancy, it proved to be one of the most groundbreaking visual films in the last 20 years or so, which paved the way for computer imaged based films since.  In fact its probably safe to say that alot of films CGI have paled in comparison ever since this film was released so that is saying alot for how good the effects are.  Terminator 2 also is definitely one hell of a thrill ride as there are plenty of great action set pieces throughout the film, of which some of the highlights are the first scene where John confronts the two terminators at the mall, the scene where Sarah tries to escape the hospital and stumbles into the Terminator coming out the lift.  And of course one of the biggest set pieces is the police seige at the Cyberdyne building, with the Terminator using a mini-gun to take out the police cars (with zero human casulaties measured down to the decimal point! (i.e. 0.0).

And if there is one thing that has changed in the terminator universe in the 2nd film then that is the added morality of the T-800 terminator being re-programmed to protect John Connor, and John ordering it to not kill anyone, and all of a sudden the terminator has become a tamer version of its former self.  But that's not to say the terminator still doesn't do a fair amount of damage in the film, as he certainly does that, with him throwing people through windows, stabbing them in the shoulders, or kneecapping them with a gun, as well as blowing shit up.  The terminator also takes on a father figure for John in T2 where its mission is to protect John, comes like a paternal one, which helps bridge the gap of not having a dad in John's life, but in the end the Terminator admits to John that its something he could never do, in which is one of the film's rare poignant moments at the end when terminator gently consoles John, before he sacrifices himself by lowering himself into the lava pit in the steel mill. 

CAST AND PERFORMANCES 

As for the cast well things are pretty good here, with the new inclusion of Edward Furlong as John Connor, he does a pretty good job as the young cocky upstart, who despite his mischievious youth, realises the importance of his future existance and he also starts to take on a commanding position later in the film.  Admittedly though at times Furlong can be a bit annoying little dick when he is being cocky, and telling the Terminator how to talk and sound cool among people, "and if you really wanna shine them on, then its "hasta la vista, baby!", but overall he does his part well.   Furlong also has some amusing moments such as the scene where John twigs that the Terminator has to obey his commands and after he calls the attention of two nearby jocks he tells them to "take a hike".  And one of the jocks says "Fuck you, you little dipshit!" and John says in response "Dipshit?!  You called "moi" a dipshit?" and he turns to the Terminator and says "grab this guy!" and the Terminator grabs the jock by his hair, lifting him off his feet and John says "NOW who's the dipshit, you jock douchebag?!".  Then there is the scene where John and Dyson at Cyberdyne enter the safe and retrieve the Terminator cpu and its hand and John smashes the containers open and takes them saying to Dyson "We've got Skynet by the balls now, don't we!  Come on, let's book!".    

Robert Patrick as the new and improved T-1000 model terminator is perfect, as he plays the terminator almost like a cat, who is very cool and detached, and his ability to move in a smooth and stealth like manner, suits his ability to play the part perfectly in the film.  I quite like the scene where he attacks John, Sarah and the terminator just as they escape the hospital in a police car, and he tries to swipe at them with his liquid metal knive shaped hands, and he get's shot off the car, and a piece of a metal lies on the boot of the car, which John throws off, and the T-1000 walks up to it, as the piece of liquid metal slides back into his shoe.  Patrick also has some good lines such as the scene where a police officer riding a bike stops to ask him if he is ok and the T-1000 says "Fine" and looks at the bike "Say.... that's a nice bike!".  And then there is the scene which is actually a joint effort between Patrick and the actress Jennette Goldstein (who you would know better as Vasquez from Aliens) where John calls home to his foster parents but twigs something is amiss as his foster mother is way too nice to her.  And in the scene the foster mother moves her hand out of shot and we hear what sounds like the sound of shutting the door, but after John passes the call to the T-800 it twigs the foster parents are dead and we then see the foster mother's arm has assumed the shape of a large sharp knife which she has stabbed right through the foster father's mouth.    

Linda Hamilton also gives a fine performance once again as Sarah Connor, who by now has become half crazed by her nightmares, and being imprisoned in a maximum security hospital, when she desparately wants to protect her son and try and end the nightmare that would become Skynet.  And she is a far cry from the Sarah in the first film, as she has become a more hardened, physically stronger woman, Linda's most amusing moment in the film comes in her first scene where she is doing pull ups in her cell and Dr Silberman, who is giving a tour of the hospital to some guests, say good morning to her through the speaker com, and she says "Good morning, Dr Silberman, how's the knee?".  And then there is the powerful scene which albeit is basically a retread of Reese's rant in the original film where we see a playback of a video tape of Sarah telling Silberman of her nightmare of Judgement day.  And in the scene forewarns "Its not a dream its real!  I know the date it happens and on 29th August 1997 its gonna feel pretty fuckin real to you too!".  And she continues by shouting "Everything you see this whole place is GONE!  You're the one living in a FUCKING DREAM, SILBERMAN!  BECAUSE I KNOW IT HAPPENS!  IT HAPPENS!!!".  And another good scene comes when Sarah tries to escape from the hospital and she knocks out one of the guards and hits Silberman's arm with a trunchoen.  And Silberman painfully says "You broke my arm!" and Sarah spits back "There are 215 bones in the human body, that's one!  Now don't move!".     

Earl Boen also makes another appearance as Dr Silberman, and he provides a fair bit of amusement as the smarmy criminal psychologist, who does everything he can to keep Sarah down.  Boen's best scene probably comes when Sarah pretends to agree that she no longer believes in the prophecy of judgment and the terminator never existed.  And as Sarah tries to reason with Silberman by saying "I have shown improvement, haven't I?" Silberman replies "Well Sarah, here's the problem.  I know how smart you are and I don't think you really believe what you are telling me today and I think you are just telling me what I want to hear.  And if I put you in minimum security wing I think you will just try and escape again".  And after Sarah fails to convince Silberman she tries to throttle him, and he gets away as the staff move in to restrain her he looks to the video camera recording the interview, and he says sarcastically "model citizen!".

And finally we have of course Arnie as the terminator (or T-800) and once again he is terrific at playing the cyborg, and his terminator in this film becomes a more humanised version of the remorseless killer in the original.  And there is plenty of room for humour in this film, where the terminator learns from John Connor how to adapt and ape human behaviour, as well as pick up phrases from him such as "hasta la vista baby" and "chill out, dickwad".  His opening scene is great where the T-800 walks naked into a bar and analyses the customers and spots a biker who is a perfect match for his clothes size and he simply asks the biker "I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle".  And as the whole room erupts with laughter the biker says "Hey, you forgot to say please!" before making the mistake of stubbing out his cigar on the T-800's chest.  Another good scene is when John asks the T-800 to swear to promise not to kill anyone, which he does, just as they arrive at the hospital gates, the terminator kneecaps the security guard at the gate, and he says afterwards to John "he'll live".  Then there is the scene where the T-800 drives his bike with John on the back and he tells him about the T-1000 and the T-800 warns John not to go back to his foster parents house.  "Negative.  The T-1000 will definitely try and reacquire you there?" and John asks "Are you sure?" and the T-800 almost sarcastically says "I would".

Then we have the scene where the T-800 subdues a bunch of armed cops at the Cyberdyne building while taking heavy gunfire he caps them in the knees with his gun, but before he does he says to John and Sarah "Stay here. I'll be back".  And later in the scene the T-800 takes a grenade launcher loaded with gas grenades and fires them out at the police cars outside and he steps up to one of the police vans and says to a cop "Here hold this" and gives him the launcher and removes the cop's gas mask!  And in a nice touch just before the T-800 is about to hotwire the car he looks for the keys underneath the sunflap and he finds them.  And last of all there is the final showdown at the steelworks plant which starts with the T-1000 suffering the effects of colliding into liquid nitrogen its body starts to freeze and crumble and the T-800 aims his gun and says "Hasta la vista, baby!" and shoots, blasting the T-1000 into a thousand pieces.  And.... (SPOILER!) after the T-800 finally destroys the T-1000 by firing a grenade launcher shell at it, blowing it apart it falls into a pit of molten lava and dissolves.  And the T-800 afterward wearily says "I need a vacation" but then says "There is still one more chip and it must be destroyed also" pointing to his head.  And as John tearfully begs him not to go the T-800 says to him "I now know why you cry.  But its something I could never do".        

DIRECTION AND MUSIC

Finally getting onto the film's director, there is not much doubt that James Cameron has done an excellent job with T2 and he keeps the film zipping along at a fairly quick pace and he is no stranger on how to shoot a great action sequence and T2 has plenty.  Cameron also confidently handles for the most part the story's characters and manages to elicit some pretty good performances from the cast although I've already mentioned them so I won't need to again.  Music wise the film also features a fine score by Brad Fiedel who of course did the music for the original Terminator film and in this film he expands on the score from the original and manages to make it sound bigger and better than the first one.  

FLAWS 

As for T2's flaws...... well yeah OK it has a few and to start off it has to be said that one of the main ones for me is Linda Hamilton mostly cringeworthy narration, which is for the most just embarrassing to listen to.  An example of which is the scene where Sarah watches John with the terminator who tries to make him learn human phrases and give a thumbs up, and she says "in an insane world, without a father, the terminator was the sanest choice".  Also the her final line is probably the worst where she says "because if a terminator can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too!".  God!!!!!!

The tone of T2 is also alot more cheesy overall than the fairly straight dramatic tone of the original, and it allows for some pretty corny moments, especially with the young precocious John and his young friend with the mullet hairdo (despite the fact this film was made in 1991, they still hadn't quite yet got out of the 80s!) saying "cool, piece of cake!" etc etc.  And in regards to the director's cut of the film while most of the additional scenes are good there are some corny ones too such as the one with Dyson's family, as he is so obssessed with his work, his wife comes in and reminds him "why don't you make time for your other babies!" as his kids peep their heads round the corner and race into the room its like something out of a TV advert!

The film also falls foul to that rather annoying tradition in action movies of its time where they keep referring to dialogue from the original film such as Arnie saying "stay here I'll be back!" or the T-1000 saying "Get out", which Arnie said in the first Terminator film when he tells a truck drive to beat it out the tanker.  And I also can't forget the one line where the T-800 having rescued Sarah from the hospital guards and says to her that immortal line uttered by Reese in the first film "Come with me if you want to live".  Yeah its a very bad trend and as the series went on it got worse by the time we got to the profoundly medicore Terminator Salvation it reached fever pitch!   

Another issue stems from the casting of Edward Furlong which in terms of his age was a bit miscast as John in the film was supposed to be 10 years old, yet Edward Furlong was 13 at the time and clearly looked a bit too old to play the part.  So in that respect Ed looks less than believable as a 10 year old boy and if he was 10 than he would clearly be pre-pubescent and his voice wouldn't have broken but this clearly is the case with Ed here!  But this purely boils down to an issue with the age of Furlong himself and of course there are plenty of other actors who were cast in films who were much older than they were supposed to be, e.g. Malcolm MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange who at the time of making the film as 27 but he was playing a 15 year old.

Another problem I have with the film is to do with the Terminator's lack of understanding of human behaviour as on one hand it says it has detailed files of human anatomy but it also has to ask what is wrong with John when he sees him cry at one point during the film.  Now this is a flaw because in the film the Terminator clearly must know something about human behaviour as it knows how to lie and that is pretty much without any of John's future tutelage for the T-800 on how to do sarcastic putdowns etc.  And a lie is of course part of human behaviour and if the T-800 knows that he/it must have some understanding of human emotion and crying, so clearly I think its bullshit in the film when the T-800 doesn't recognise this. 

Also from a narrative stand point the whole time travel thing, while in terms of the events being changed by the actions of the terminators and John and Sarah it all seems fairly plausable, it just makes me wonder, when they help make the change in the film, i.e. when Sarah is rescued in the first film, is the future John Connor ever in threat, ala Back to the Future style, in how Marty nearly vanishes when his dad meekly walks away from Lorraine on the dance floor on prom night??? Or have I just confused everybody????  Basically what I mean is, if the events that take place change the future, when these events happen in the present, how soon will they impact on the future, based in the future time, will it be instantenous???? Who knows???

This also raises a continuity flaw within the series, as when at the end when the T-1000 is destroyed and the T-800 sacrifices itself by being lowered into the steel mill lava pit, doesn't this mean that Skynet will no longer exist? As if the only two surviving terminator cpus, are the one which came from the first terminator as well as the remains of its skeletal arm, which Dyson used for his research, and the one inside the T-800 in this film, once they are destroyed along with Dyson's research at Cyberdyne, does this not change the timeline and thereby Skynet will be pre-emptively aborted?  Because if Terminator 3 is anything to go by then this certainly isn't the case, as it would appear the destruction of the two cpus and the cyborg arm, would only postpone judgment day, and the hellish future world will still remain the same.  And this is where the whole logic of the timelines becomes blurred, and in that regard it was something that was done that bit better in Back to the Future!

But further to this point if you look closer at the scene where the T-800 and T-1000 fight each other at the steelworks plant and the T-1000 pushes and thereby jams the T-800's hand into a large gear in the next scene the T-800 uses a crowbar to snap off his hand to free himself from the gear.  Now.... by doing this the T-800 had left his severed mechanical hand behind and in doing so he ensured that Skynet will still exist in the future as he had neglected to pick up his own hand and throw it into the lava himself.  So this means that investigators searching place were sure to find the T-800's hand and from there it would doubtless find its way into the hands of more government scientists and before you know it, voila!.... we have Skynet once again.  So in short, thanks T-800, you failed in your mission to prevent the creation of Skynet and from the worldwide genocide of Judgement day as it was always ensured that it would happen!  Either that or James Cameron was doing a sneaky little manoeuvre to keep the critics and analysts on their toes, similar to Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy coming up with the sneaky idea of Spock's ressurection worked neatly in at the end of Star Trek II, when Spock gives his Katra to McCoy before sacrificing himself.  So if that was the case then Cameron knew all along what he was doing and he really was a sneaky and rather clever bastard!  

SUM UP 
 
And that's it for my revised look at T2 which is still a very entertaining sci-fi action film which remains a landmark in the genre primarily for its groundbreaking special effects which are still amazing to this day, plus it nicely reintroduced the original characters and even dared to humanise the terminator itself.  

So on that note I shall bid yee goodnight.

Later dickwads!