Jim Palmer Movies

A sequel to the sci-fi action thriller that made him and star Arnold Schwarzenegger A-list Hollywood names, writer/director James Cameron upped the ante with this follow-up by employing a more sweeping storyline and cutting-edge special effects. Linda Hamilton returns as Sarah Connor, now a single mother to rebellious teen John Connor (Edward Furlong), during the late nineties. Having been informed by a time-traveling soldier in the first film that John will one day grow up to become humanity's savior from a computer-controlled Armageddon, Sarah has responded by becoming a muscle-bound she-warrior bent on educating John in survival tactics and battle strategies. Her ranting about humankind's future has landed Sarah in an insane asylum and John in the foster care system. The rebellious John has responded to his situation by getting into scrapes with the law. When a new and improved Terminator android called the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) arrives from the future to eliminate John, an older model T-800 (Schwarzenegger) is sent to protect the boy. The T-1000, however, has the ability to morph itself into any shape it desires, allowing it chameleon-like powers and near indestructibility. The T-800 saves John's life and helps break Sarah out of the institution. Staying only one step ahead of the dogged T-1000, Sarah leads her son and the T-800 to the headquarters of Cyberdyne Systems, the company that will invent a robotic intelligence that will eventually take over the world. There, they attempt to convince inventor Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) to help them stop the future from ever occurring by destroying his work. Dyson sacrifices himself in an explosion to save the world, leading to a final showdown between the two Terminators at a steel foundry. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), which won four Oscars in technical categories for its groundbreaking effects, was followed by a short sequel filmed exclusively as an attraction for theme parks, Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time (1996). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Director Joel Schumacher inherited the Batman franchise from Tim Burton and began steering it in the campier direction of the Sixties television show with this third installment. First-time Batman/Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer), in his only outing as the Caped Crusader, is effectively brooding as he ponders strange dreams about his parents' death and escapes his own near-demise at the hands of Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), a former district attorney driven insane and turned into a master criminal when a gangster throws acid in his face. Meanwhile, as sexy psychologist Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) tries to analyze and seduce both Bruce Wayne and Batman, Wayne Enterprises employee Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) reacts badly to getting fired, using his self-invented mind-energy device to transform into the super-intelligent Riddler. The Riddler teams up with Two-Face to bring down Batman and drain the minds of Gotham City residents with his device, while Batman gets some much-needed help in the form of circus performer Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell), out for vengeance after being orphaned by Two-Face. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

The traditions of the western and the gangster film meet head-on in this dark crime drama. Jericho is a small town in Texas that in the 1920s looks much like it did in the 1860s, except that two violent gangs of rival bootleggers have driven away nearly all of the citizens not involved in the booze racket. Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg) leads a gang of Italian rum-runners with the help of his right-hand-man Giorgio (Michael Imperioli), while Doyle (David Patrick Kelly) is the head of an Irish mob, with Hickey (Christopher Walken) serving as his enforcer; the town's sheriff, Ed Galt (Bruce Dern) is powerless to stop the crime in Jericho, and he mainly tries to stay out of the way and keep an uneasy peace between Strozzi and Doyle. John Smith (Bruce Willis) is a ruthless and amoral gunman on the run from the law who passes through Jericho on his way to Mexico. Sizing up the situation, Smith quickly hatches a scheme by which he'll sell his services first to one of the gangs, and then the other, eventually turning the two sides against each other while he stays in the middle and takes the profits generated by both sides. Writer and director Walter Hill based his screenplay on Akira Kurosawa's classic samurai picture Yojimbo, which also inspired Sergio Leone's ground-breaking spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the 1969 short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss, this science fiction fantasy bears similarities to Pinocchio (1940) and originated as a long-gestating project of director Stanley Kubrick that passed to his friend Steven Spielberg after Kubrick's death. Haley Joel Osment stars as David, a "mecha" or robot of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and submerged many coastal cities, causing worldwide starvation and human dependence upon robotic assistance. The first mecha designed to experience love, David is the "son" of Henry (Sam Robards), an employee of the company that built the boy, and the grief-stricken Monica (Frances O'Connor). David is meant to replace the couple's hopelessly comatose son, but when their natural child recovers, David is abandoned and sets out to become "a real boy" worthy of his mother's affection. Along the way, David is mentored by a pleasure-providing mecha named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) and a talking "super toy" bear named Teddy. His adventures take him to the Roman Circus-style "Flesh Fair," where mechas are destroyed for the amusement of humans; Rouge City, where Gigolo Joe narrowly avoids capture by police; and finally a submerged New York City, where David's creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt) reveals the secrets of the boy's creation. Brendan Gleeson and narrator Ben Kingsley co-star in A.I., which was adapted from Kubrick's treatment by Spielberg, in his first crack at screenwriting since Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In this adventure-filled sequel to the 2004 blockbuster National Treasure, Nicolas Cage reprises his role as artifact hunter and archaeologist extraordinaire Ben Franklin Gates. In this outing, Gates learns of his own family's implication in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Gates must then locate an elusive diary, not only to clear his family's name, but to unearth and connect several secrets, buried within the book, that point to a massive, global conspiracy. The film co-stars Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and Helen Mirren as Ben's mother. Jerry Bruckheimer returns as producer. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide