The second film in the franchise takes place ten years since a killer cyborg referred to as The Terminator traveled back in time to try and kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) to stop her from giving birth to her son John Connor. As we all know, John Connor would grow up to be the man who would lead the resistance against Cybernet and the machines, which is why Sarah was targeted in the first place. In this second film, however, John (played by Edward Furlong) has made it into boyhood and is approaching his teenaged years and while he's an angsty and somewhat troubled youth, he doesn't seem to be in any eminent danger.

All of this changes when a new and improved Terminator referred to as the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) is sent back in time for a second attempt at killing John before he can become the hero we all know he will be. This Terminator is considerably more advanced than the original model, able to shift shape and take on different appearances and voices. Thankfully, John and Sarah don't have to go toe-to-toe with this thing on their own, because an original model (Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course!) has also been sent back… this time not to kill John Connor, but to protect him from the T-1000 and hopefully save the planet before the machines take over!

That's a pretty basic plot synopsis but at this point, almost anyone interested in T2 will have seen the movie at least a few times… and those who have know that for the most part it holds up really well. Special effects, particularly digital special effects, have obviously come a long way since this picture was made in 1991 but director James Cameron's groundbreaking picture has aged surprisingly well, particularly when compared to other films that used heavy digital effects work made around the same time. The movie is also really well-paced, beautifully shot and features some excellent sound design to accompany the impressive visuals. It really is a textbook example of a blockbuster action film, filled with plenty of action and excitement, ‘big' set pieces, memorable characters and catchy one-liners. It's not as dark or intense as the movie that came before it, this is much more of an action film and it gets rid of pretty much all the horror elements that made the original The Terminator so cool and creepy as it was, but it's a damn fun popcorn movie.

It's not just the action and the excitement and the explosions and the Guns ‘N Roses music on the soundtrack that makes this work, however. The performances are, of course, a big part of the film's success. Linda Hamilton is great as the tough as nails Sarah Connor. She gets ready for war in this one and she suits the part really well. Edward Furlong plays the snotty, bratty John Connor well here too. His character is kind of annoying, but then, he's supposed to be. Of course, Schwarzenegger steals the show here, looking as bad ass as bad ass can be in his trademark biker jacket and shades, whisking Connor off to safety on the back of his motorcycle and blasting away with his shotgun. Robert Patrick is also really good here as the T-1000, playing the part with a ruthlessness that goes a long way to making it work far better than you might expect.

It's also worth noting that Cameron has made some tweaks to this movie that need to be pointed out. Scenes where, in the past, stunt doubles were noticeable have been digitally altered so that those stunt doubles now appear not as (sometimes fairly obvious) stunt doubles but as the actors they're supposed to be portraying. It's also worth noting that the UHD disc in this set contains only the theatrical cut of the film, which is a shame as on the accompanying Blu-ray disc we get all three versions of the movie cut together using seamless branching.

Video:

Terminator 2: Judgement Day arrives on a dual layered UHD from Lionsgate in a HEVC (H.265) encoded 4k 2160p transfer framed at 2.39.1 widescreen in a presentation that is very much a mixed bag. The high dynamic range transfer boasts excellent color reproduction (though it's definitely different than past presentations: oranges and reds really pop, almost glowing in spots, but blue seems to be more dominant than it has been in the past) but has, unfortunately, been scrubbed pretty much entirely of all of its natural grain. Why this is, well, it could be that it was done as part of the 3D conversion that it recently underwent or maybe it's that James Cameron likes it this way, who knows really, but the fact is that this doesn't look like film, even when it was clearly shot on film. The weird thing is that there's still a lot of detail here and the image isn't waxy the way the worst DNR offenders are (I'm looking at you, Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition and pretty much everything put out by Raro lately!). There's frequently impressive fine detail evident on faces, hair and clothing that wasn't nearly as noticeable on DVD or Blu-ray that is now far more apparent than it ever was. On the flip side, there's are noticeable halos from digital sharpening evident here. Still, there are moments where this transfer looks amazing… but it also looks entirely digitized, which is understandably going to irk those who want their 4k discs to look like film.