Last Saturday, in the second part of my review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) we saw that two terminators had arrived. One is meant to protect John Connor. The other is meant to kill him. The question is which is which?

The audience is first introduced to John Connor at his foster parents’ house. It’s quickly apparent that he doesn’t like these caretakers, and he soon leaves with one of his friends on a motorized bike. But the fact that John is being taken care of by these two foster parents raises an obvious question. Where is his mother?

It turns out that Sarah Connor has been locked away in a mental institution. The authorities consider her crazy because she insists that a robotic apocalypse is fast approaching. Here, the writers made a smart choice. They bring back the psychologist from the first film.

I was glad to see this because I thought he got off a little easy last time. Sarah tries to pretend that she no longer believes the warning given to her by Kyle Reese, but the psychologist doesn’t buy it, so she’s trapped.

As for John, we next see him in a mall, playing video games, where one of the Terminators, the T-1000, is looking for him. At this point, we should believe that this terminator is the good guy because he’s dressed like a cop. But thanks to the quirky bar scene that took place earlier in the film, the viewer can plainly see this isn’t the case.

There is some tension during the mall scene since the viewer already knows that the T-1000 is the villain, but it would’ve been better if the writers had tried harder to convince the audience that the T-1000 was the good guy. It doesn’t look like the writers were even attempting to do this because, for one thing, the marketing plainly states that the Terminator is now the good guy, and for another, while the T-1000 acts friendly at times, it quickly drops the act when it thinks no one is looking and begins walking around with an angry expression on its face that practically screams it’s a serial killer. In my opinion, this was a mistake.

John soon sees the cop and, thinking he’s in trouble for some reason, begins to run. The T-1000 chases after him, and while John is running down a hall, the original Terminator enters the scene. This moment should’ve been terrifying. The audience should’ve been wondering if the T-1000 was going to reach John in time to save him. Instead, the viewer already knows that the original Terminator is the good guy, so John is practically saved, even if he doesn’t know it.

This knowledge deadens the tension, so when the T-000 arrives, the audience isn’t surprised to see the original Terminator pull out a shotgun and begin blasting the villainous droid. This is aggravating! When the original Terminator pulls out the shotgun, the audience should be thinking it’s meant for John. They should’ve been asking themselves how the protagonist is going to escape this situation. Instead, the shootout in the hallway feels dull and expected.

Fortunately, the movie does make up for this by following the shootout with an impressive chase scene, filled with crashes and stunts that only a nineties blockbuster could provide. After thousands, if not millions, of dollars in property damage, John and the original Terminator escape.

John quickly puts together what’s going on thanks to all the stories his mother has told him before she was locked away. He realizes the Terminator is here to protect him, so the first thing he tries to do is warn his foster parents. He may not like them very much, but he doesn’t think they should die. However, the T-1000 reaches his foster parents first, so when John tries to call them, the T-1000 imitates the voice of his foster mother over the phone. But both John and the Terminator realize the ruse and hang up.

I have to compliment the writers for the way they shot this scene. The T-1000 is a robot made of liquid metal and can transform into anyone it touches. So, when John calls his foster parents, the audience sees the T-1000 pick up the phone disguised as John’s foster mother. Then, when the two realize it’s lying and hang up the phone, the viewer sees that the T-1000 has murdered the foster mother’s husband. I’ll admit that when I saw this scene as a kid, I thought my mom was a robot for a month. It’s very well done.

After the Terminator hangs up, he confirms that John’s foster parents are dead. John’s next goal is to try and save his real mother before the T-1000 can attack her. At first, the Terminator doesn’t want to do this and grabs John. But John screams for help and tells the robot to let him go. To his surprise, the robot does as he commands, and John quickly realizes that his future self has ordered the robot to do as he says.

To test this realization, John tells the robot to stand on one foot. It does. Then two men rush up to them because they’ve heard John’s cries for help. John rudely tells them to leave, and the two men become angry. Then the Terminator attacks them and even tries to kill one of the men. John orders it to stop and tells the two men to run away, which they do. He then tells the Terminator not to kill anyone.

I briefly mentioned before that there is an anti-violence message spread throughout the film. If they’d left the matter alone after this scene, I wouldn’t bother to bring it up because it does play well. Seeing the Terminator dispatch his opponents without killing them is fun, but unfortunately this is the start of the social commentary and the messaging gets more pretentious as time goes on.

It’s a shame because, by itself, this twist on the rules the robot has to follow works. It shows John teaching the Terminator to become more human. The Terminator doesn’t understand why it has to follow this order, but it does so, and by the end of the movie, the writers imply that the robot is beginning to understand something about human emotions and values.

In reality, I don’t think this could happen, but if a writer wanted to show a robot becoming sentient over time, mimicry becoming reality isn’t the worst way to do it. Alas, the writers couldn’t leave well enough alone.

John orders the robot to help him save his mother, and Terminator complies. They go to the mental institution to save Sarah Connor. However, Sarah is already in the process of escaping herself, which is a good thing because the T-1000 is also there, hunting for her.

She captures the psychologist and threatens him with a needle filled with cleaning fluid, then she tries to make the guards let her go, using the psychologist as a hostage. This plan falls apart, and while Sarah is running through the halls, trying to escape, she meets the Terminator and panics.

Thankfully, John shows up and explains the situation. The Terminator repeats Kyle Reese’s famous line: “Come with me if you want to live.” This lets Sarah know that the Terminator is on their side because future John, aware of this story, would have programmed the Terminator to say this line so that she could understand its intentions. At least, that’s what I think was going on because the movie doesn’t say. It’s also possible that the writers gave the Terminator this line simply as a callback to the first film. Or perhaps both are in play at the same time.

Sarah has no choice but to trust the robot anyway because the T-1000 shows up a moment later and begins chasing after them. I took some satisfaction in this scene because the psychologist is there for the whole thing. He now realizes that Sarah was telling the truth the entire time. However, I think he should’ve suffered just a little bit more. I’m not saying he should’ve died or anything, but a flesh wound would’ve been nice.

Sarah, John, and the Terminator manage to ditch the T-1000, and we’ll cover what happens then next Saturday.