70
Trend-setting visuals compensate for a plot that lacks the imagination and edge of the 1984 original.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
All the virtues of the original... are present here, though when Cameron tries to milk some sentiment out of the "personality" and fate of his top machine he comes up flat and empty, and the other characters are scarcely more interesting.
100
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
More elaborate than the original, but just as shrewdly put together, it cleverly combines the most successful elements of its predecessor with a number of new twists (would you believe a kinder, gentler Terminator?) to produce on e hell of a wild ride, a Twilight of the Gods that takes no prisoners and leaves audiences desperate for mercy. [3 July 1991, Calendar, p.F-1]
67
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
What is notable, though, is the amount of compassion invested in the film by Cameron and co-screenwriter William Wisher. There's a fairly well-drawn moral message in T2 that was more or less absent in the first film.
100
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
Terminator 2 imagines things you wouldn't even be likely to dream and gets these visions onto the screen with a seamlessness that's mind-boggling. [3 July 1991, Daily Datebook, p.E1]
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
A great movie... A pop epiphany, marking that commercially creative point where the power of Hollywood meets the purity of myth.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The key element in any action picture, I think, is a good villain. Terminator 2 has one, along with an intriguing hero and fierce heroine, and a young boy who is played by Furlong with guts and energy.
30
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
The surprise is that a picture made to be exciting for 136 minutes is so unexciting most of the time. It starts with a bang and keeps banging, so there's little suspense and no crescendo. [12 Aug 1991, p.28]
75
Arnie is Arnie. He has all the cute lines ("No problemo," "Hasta la vista, baby''). And he does more with a squint than anyone since Popeye. [3 July 1991, Life, p.1D]