Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, . . .

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

(1991)

Nah, I wasn't really ever gonna term--, er, deaccession this. Fact is, there just aren't a lot of good deaccession candidates left (which is a good thing), so Friday night is evolving into the night when I just watch something I haven't seen for at least 5 years. When soccer season kicks in and I start filling my DVR with excess matches, then maybe I'll start deaccessioning films I have saved there.

Anyway, this is at least a half-hour longer than it ought to be (half of that excess was added for the DVD release, I guess), and it's got more sentimental bilge sloshing around its decks than that movie Cameron made about the boat and the berg, but when it kicks ass, it kicks ass of Schwarzeneggerian proportions. Speaking of whom, I was wondering at the start whether the fact that Arnold plays a good-guy Terminator this time was known or widely suspected by the time the picture was released; hope not: the audience should have had the same reluctance to trust him that the Connors do.

And speaking of Sarah Connor, I do recall that much was written at the time about Linda Hamilton's extraordinary physical transformation for the film, and it's as impressive as ever, if her acting is no more so than ever: she's as much a sexless death machine as any Terminator. The special effects, too--especially those pertaining to the T-1000--while not as mind-boggling as two decades ago, are still worth the trip. Summer eye candy at its best.