Terminator 2: Judgment Day

This might be the coolest action movie ever made.

Arnie walking into that biker bar, taking that guy’s clothes and walking out to the sound of “Bad to the Bone” is absolute perfection. It tells you exactly what kind of film you are about to watch within the first few minutes. Everything about Terminator 2 just oozes cool.

Flipping the script and bringing Arnie back as the good guy was a brilliant twist on the first movie too. The original Terminator had already established him as this unstoppable killing machine, so seeing him return and slowly realising that he is actually there to protect John Connor works incredibly well.

And then you have Robert Patrick as the T-1000, who is still one of my favourite villains of all time.

He is always so cold and machine-like, but there is something predatory about the way he moves and watches people. He never feels angry or emotional. He is just hunting. That makes him genuinely terrifying because there is no reasoning with him, no intimidating him and no way of making him stop. He is simply going to keep coming until John is dead.

The effects still deserve a mention too. The liquid metal effects were incredible at the time, but even now there are scenes that still look fantastic. The way the T-1000 reforms after being shot, moves through metal bars or turns his arms into weapons still feels convincing because the film mixes the CGI with loads of practical effects and stunt work.

T2 is absolutely packed with action as well. The truck chase through the canal, the hospital escape, Cyberdyne and the steel mill finale are all brilliant, and somehow the film keeps finding ways to make each set piece feel bigger than the last.

There is loads of humour in there too, especially through John teaching the Terminator how to act more human. It gives us some of the greatest one-liners in action movie history without ever turning the Terminator into a complete comedy character.

Linda Hamilton is incredible as Sarah Connor as well. She has completely transformed from the character we saw in the first film. She is stronger, harder and completely obsessed with stopping Judgment Day, but you can also see how badly everything that happened to her has affected her.

For a film filled with guns, explosions, motorbikes and killer robots, there is also a surprising amount of heart to it. The relationship between John and the Terminator genuinely works, which makes the ending hit much harder than it probably has any right to.

It is massive, ridiculous, funny, surprisingly emotional and effortlessly cool.

Terminator 2 is pretty much everything I want from an action movie.