Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A great movie... A pop epiphany, marking that commercially creative point where the power of Hollywood meets the purity of myth.

Los Angeles Times 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]

San Francisco Chronicle 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]

Washington Post Hal Hinson

The stunning special effects show something that's rare these days -- technical stunts that evoke a true sense of wonder; it's real jaw-to-the-floor stuff... In staging the movie's gigantic set pieces, [Cameron] has an eye for both grandeur and beauty.

Chicago Sun-Times 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.

Washington Post Joe Brown

Visceral to the point of overkill (and beyond), a berserk blizzard of kinetic images, it doesn't even give you time to be scared.

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

As with "Aliens," director James Cameron has again taken a first rate science fiction film and crafted a sequel that's in some ways more impressive - expanding on the original rather than merely remaking it.

Empire Kim Newman

No-one can walk out of this and say they didn't see the whole hundred mil up there on the screen in exploding vehicles, wrecked buildings, monster effects and sheer sweaty action.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film's relentless pummeling grows wearying at 135 minutes. The first Terminator, a half-hour shorter, was leaner and meaner.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

A good summer movie, directed with great verve and imagination and filled with innovative, eye-popping effects. Cameron never relinquishes his grip on the audience, smoothly segueing from action sequence to action sequence and topping himself each time. [3 July 1991, Tempo, p.1]

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

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]

TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)

Trend-setting visuals compensate for a plot that lacks the imagination and edge of the 1984 original.

Austin Chronicle 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.

Chicago Reader 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.

Time Richard Corliss

A humongous, visionary parable that intermittently enthralls and ultimately disappoints. [8 July 1991, p.55]

The New Republic 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]

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

This tirelessly violent, ultimately exhausting film has the utter sincerity of all good science fiction, and a lot more flair than most, but it suffers from a certain confusion of purpose. In the end, it amounts to quite the pistol-packing plea for peace.