Terminator 2 works on an entirely different order from the original Terminator. Whereas T1 had a lean, mean premise and a couple of nice science fiction tricks up its sleeve, T2 rolls the tapestry open and really shines. At the time the most expensive film ever made (a record only Cameron himself could top, six years later), T2 is the classic example of "the money's on the screen." Confined to a strangulating $6 million budget on the first film, Cameron blows the bank this time around, creating a science fiction epic that roars.

Yet - and this is important - T2 never sacrifices the internal logic of its predecessor. Judgment Day is still coming, the world is still well and truly fucked - and, in a nice touch for any summer action spectacular, this is a story with weight and consequences. The years since Sarah Connor's first run-in with the future's killing machines have not passed easily. As anybody who's ever taken a "women in film" course knows, modern-day Sarah Connor in the T2 era is one tough mother, every drop of fat shed from her wiry frame and the consequent emotional softness equally threadbare. A feral, ferocious creature, Linda Hamilton is delightful in this role - you never know if Sarah's going to explode out at you with a killing blow, or lie back and sob.

What's neat about T2 is that it's essentially about a post-apocalyptic society that has yet to experience its apocalypse. Our rag-tag group of freedom fighters - Terminator, John, Sarah, Dyson, even the mercenaries in the desert - are all living under the awareness that there are no real victories coming, that every seeming success carries with it the cloak of enormous, overarching defeat.

It's a breath of air, then, that when they get a chance to "get Skynet by the balls," they go for it with gusto, the first glimmer of hope chancing out into the sunlight after a decade of darkness. Poor Sarah is almost too far-gone by this point to even connect with the potential of her actions; she has become as ruthless a killer as the machine that hunted her in the original film. John, on the other hand, carries the promise of what "No Fate But What We Make" really means. An annoying little snotrag half the time, he nonetheless is the only character with the conviction to keep things moving towards some idea of salvation - humanity's messiah, even at the age of ten.

Arguably Cameron's tightest film (in its theatrical cut), T2 works with a clockwork precision rarely seen in today's action films. There are grand set pieces, to be sure - the liquid nitrogen tractor trailer chase rings a bell - but they are well paced with nicely modulated character and exposition sequences, along with some fairly gruesome terminations, as has become tradition by this point. (Check out Todd's death - through a carton of milk, right into the brain. That'll teach him never to drink from the carton!)

On repeat viewings, John's humanization of the Terminator begins to wear a bit thin, but at the very least, it gives Schwarzenegger something interesting to play while he's shepherding the humans through danger after danger. At the time at the top of his game, Arnie gives as good as he gets here. I don't know if playing the Terminator will ever really qualify as a "performance," but the big man never fails to be believable.

Then there's Robert Patrick's bone-chilling performance as the polymorphous mega monster, the T-1000. This villain is so fucking badass, it genuinely succeeds in convincing us that the heroes just ain't going to make it out of this one - owing in no small part to Patrick's ice-cold glares and sensual body language. And yes, even over a decade on, ILM's pioneering digital effects still look as sharp and spooky as ever - the T-1000 is nightmare-inducing.

And I'll admit it - even today, the opening credits shot of nuclear fire blasting through a slowly-spinning merry-go-round still gives me the bone-deep collywobbles. It stirs the pot of dread right from the beginning, and our heroes spend the entirety of Terminator 2 fighting their way back from one hell of a defecit. This flick still works like gangbusters.