Joe Morton

Three pilots struggle to bring an unpiloted computer-driven drone under control before it initiates a nuclear war.

Ace engineer Michael Jennings takes up what seems to be a high-paying job, but soon finds himself detained by the FBI with no memory of what happened.

An astronaut acts strangely after a space mission. A pair of shuttle astronauts leave their spacecraft to repair a satellite. There's an explosion. NASA loses contact for two minutes, but the both are rescued and safely returned to Earth. Eventually it becomes evident that neither of the astronauts is quite the same. —JHole Astronaut Spencer Armacost was on a mission when he suddenly lost contact. When he got home, to friends he was the same, but to his wife he was different. She becomes pregnant, but as time progresses she begins to feel like the lives inside of her are not of this world. —Brian Levin <COMICY@aol.com> A space shuttle in orbit to repair a damaged satellite is forced to return to Earth after NASA loses contact with astronauts Spencer Armacost and Alex Streck for two minutes. Both were outside the spacecraft when the incident occurred. While Armacost seems to be unaffected, Streck has a much harder time recovering from whatever happened to them. Over time, Armacost's wife Jillian begins to note subtle changes in him. Egged on by a former NASA employee, she begins to believe that her husband is something else. She also learns that she is pregnant. —garykmcd

A Miami con man agrees to be the human target for a Neo-Nazi manhunter in order to collect $50,000 if he survives. Miami scam artist Pest Vargas is on the run from the Scottish mob and a German headhunter, the mob after 50,000 dollars, the German guy after his head. Pest dons many disguises in an attempt to evade their clutches. —Adam "Mr. Movie" Hakari <spotlite@chibardun.net>

In Trieste, Italy, Lieutenant Colonel Austin Travis (Steven Seagal) leads an unsuccessful U.S Special Forces raid on a Chechen mafia safe house to recover a stolen Soviet nerve agent called DZ-5 (also known as VX Gas). During the raid one of his men is killed, and the nerve agent is nowhere to be found, leaving the mission a bust. Three months later, Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell), a U.S. Army intelligence expert, is informed that terrorist leader El Sayed Jaffa was abducted from his daughter's wedding by an unknown entity and anonymously delivered to U.S authorities. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber walks into a luxurious London, England restaurant and blows himself up after warning people to listen to the sound of Al Tha'r. That same day, Oceanic Airlines Flight 343, a Boeing 747-200, leaves Athens, Greece, bound for Washington, D.C., with over 400 passengers on board, including U.S. Senator Mavros (J.T Walsh), and a disguised Nagi Hassan (David Suchet), El Sayed Jaffa's deputy director. Soon after take-off Hassan and his men, having sneaked weapons on the flight, hijack the plane and sends a message under the name Al Tha'r demanding Jaffa's release. An armed deputy U.S Airline Marshal (Richard Riehle) who is on the plane but unable to prevent the hijack quickly conceals his badge and gun to avoid being identified and compromise the security of the passengers. Jean (Halle Berry), a flight attendant takes a huge risk by getting rid of the passengers manifest and lying to Hassan to conceal the Marshal's presence. Meanwhile, David Grant is called away from a tuxedo and gown party to a meeting at the Pentagon to plan an operation to retake the plane. While the secretary of defense and everyone else around the table, including Austin Travis who despises Grant and holds him responsible for the failed mission in Italy, agrees that they must plan for a ground strike on the terrorists as soon as the plane lands, Grant doubts Hassan's demands, suspecting he engineered Jaffa's capture himself, and intends to use the plane to detonate a bomb loaded with the DZ-5 nerve agent into U.S. airspace. Grant strongly advises the secretary not to let the plane reach U.S airspace, much less touch U.S soil. He also reveals that the name used by the terrorists, Al Tha'r, is an ancient Arabic form of the word "revenge". Not willing to destroy the plane and it's 400 passengers without proof that the plane is truly a threat to the United States, The Pentagon opt to send Travis's team on a mission to infiltrate Oceanic Airlines Flight 343 mid-air using the experimental airplane "Remora F117x" invented by DARPA engineer Dennis Cahill (Oliver Platt). Travis requests Grant's presence on the plane for live intel, somehow knowing that Grant is deathly afraid of flying. Grant and Cahill both agrees to join Travis's team to intercept the plane. The Remora intercepts and docks with the 747 in mid-air. The boarding is only partially successful though due to strong turbulence, causing the team's bomb specialist "Cappy" (Joe Morton) to fall and break his neck. Grant boards the plane to assist Cappy just as the 747 pulls up, over stressing the Remora's docking tunnel. Travis sacrifices himself by closing the 747's hatch before it decompresses, saving his team but killing him and destroying the Remora. On the plane, the surviving team members, "Rat"(John Leguizamo), "Cappy", Louie (B.D Wong), and Baker ( Whip Hubley), along with Grant and Cahill reassess their situation: Cappy is alive but immobilized, having fractured some vertebrae. They only have access to half their gear, no sleeping agent and, most importantly, no radio and no communication equipment, leaving the Pentagon completely unaware of their survival. With limited options, the team, now under Rat's command, use spy cameras and microphones to observe, locate and assess the terrorists while covertly searching the plane for the suspected DZ-5 bomb, with the aim of neutralizing it before storming the cabin. During his search for Hassan, Grant accidentally compromises himself to Jean, who keeps quiet about it despite Hassan's suspicions about her. The team finally locates the bomb and Grant is proven right when they find out the bomb has enough DZ-5 to take out half the Eastern seaboard on its own. Cappy analyzes the bomb and reveals it has a barometric detonator, meaning it will detonate upon landing, but assures his team he knows how to neutralize it. They call upon Cahill to assist Cappy, who is still immobilized, with the bomb while Grant and the others take positions all around the plane to hit it as soon as the bomb is neutralized. Cappy guides Cahill and successfully disarms the bomb. He advises his team that the bomb is secured, but just as they're about to attack, Cappy calls off the attack, having found that the bomb has a remote-controlled trigger and someone is testing it, meaning someone on the plane can still detonate the bomb at any moment. Cappy then succumbs to the pain meds he was given earlier and loses consciousness. Meanwhile Jaffa, released by U.S officials in an attempt to resolve the situation, calls Hassan from a private jet to tell him he is free and on his way to Algeria, and extends an offer from the U.S government to acquiesce to all of Hassan's demands in exchange for releasing the hostages. Hassan, while rejoicing in his leader's freedom, informs Jaffa that his mission is not finished as he intends to strike a sword deep into the infidels. Jaffa tries to reason with Hassan but he abruptly ends the call, forcing the Secretary of defense to order an air strike on the plane, having received no updates from Travis' team. Following the phone call, Hassan is confronted by his second in command who is challenging Hassan on his decision not to divert the plane back to Algeria now that their leader is free. Hassan reveals their real mission is to strike a deathblow to their enemies which his lieutenant disagrees with. Hassan assaults and kills his lieutenant and then orders the others back to their position. Grant, having overheard the whole exchange, realizes Hassan's men are unaware of the bomb and Hassan's true intentions. He also aptly deduces that the bomb's trigger-man is not Hassan or one of the armed terrorists, but a sleeping agent hiding amongst the passengers. Grant and the team decide to look for the passenger with cameras hooked to the main cabin while Cahill will attempt to figure out how to neutralize the remote detonator. Just as Cahill is about to execute his own theory and cut a wire, Cappy awakens to stop them and resumes working the bomb with Cahill while Grant rejoins the team to look for the secret trigger-man whom Grant is certain will be Jean-Paul Demou, one of Jaffa's men believed to have built the bomb. Grant uses a camera and having bypassed the plane's phone system to secretly communicate with Jean whom he trusts in assisting them with finding the trigger-man. While he's giving her instructions, she gets attacked and threatened by Hassan who points his gun at her but she's able to lie her way out of it. After catching her breath, she agrees to help Grant. She also takes a moment to covertly advise the Marshal about the presence of soldiers on the plane. While going around, tending to the passengers' needs, she spots a passenger with an electronic device that looks just like what Grant described to her so she silently communicates the seat number to Grant. Back in the cargo area, Cappy and Cahill seems to be making progress with the bomb when a random remote check from the trigger-man causes Cahill to panic and cut several wires he wasn't supposed to touch. The bomb not blowing up and seeming still fully functional make Cappy realize they are working on a decoy. The real bomb's computer is underneath the one they've been working on all along. Meanwhile, the U.S air strike has finally reached the plane and are attempting to divert it from its course by threatening to attack. Hassan refuses to divert and calls upon Senator Mavros who offered himself earlier to negotiate in an attempt to boost his political popularity for the upcoming elections. Mavros asks to speak with the President of the United States directly but is denied by the Secretary of defense. He is then killed by Hassan in a demonstration of his ruthlessness. The plane getting too close to the fail safe line, the Secretary of defense has no choice and orders the fighter jets to attack the plane. Luckily, Grant intercepted the exchange and is able to communicate with the fighter jets through Morse code from the tail lights, that they are on board, requesting an extra ten minutes to neutralize the bomb and retake the plane, despite already crossing into U.S. airspace. As soon as the Secretary overhears the team's mission code as part of the message, he agrees to give them ten minutes through a coded message of his own. Knowing they need to act now, the team gathers behind Grant to allow Cahill and Cappy five more minutes with the bomb and then attack no matter what. Out of desperation, Grant abandons his position and contacts Jean to use her help to enter the main cabin in an attempt to take out the suspected trigger-man by surprise, but he turns out to be an innocent passenger. Grant is then proven right once more by spotting Jean-Paul Demou, sitting on the plane. He shoots the remote away from him and engages him in an intense brawl. Hassan attempts to shoot Grant, but is himself shot by the federal air marshal. The commandos storm the cabin as a firefight ensues. Grant struggles to wrestle the remote detonator from Demou's grip while Baker and Rat gun-down several terrorists. Louie assists Grant by fatally shooting Demou and eliminating the remaining terrorists. Demou, however, manages to arm the bomb before dying, and stray bullets from a terrorist's weapon pierce a passenger window causing explosive decompression and killing three passengers. The bomb is disarmed just in time by Cappy and Cahill as the plane regains stable flight. Grant confronts Hassan and shows him that the bomb is neutralized. In a final act of desperation, a wounded Hassan sprays the cockpit with bullets, killing the pilots, before being shot and killed by Rat. With the pilots dead, over 400 lives on the line and a bomb on-board, aerophobic Grant, despite his limited flying experience and never having flown solo, assumes control of the plane and attempts to land it at the designated runway but misses the approach to Dulles International Airport, forcing him to go around. Knowing he's not good enough to turn the plane around and try another approach, Grant recognizes the area surrounding his training airfield, and decides to head there instead. The landing is sloppy and quite damaging as the airfield was never meant for a 747 but fortunately, none of the damages and impact triggers the bomb and Grant is finally able to safely land onto a sand berm at the runway's safety area, and the passengers are safely evacuated. Having finally exit the plane, Grant witnesses the bomb squad taking away the bomb and Cahill gives him his lucky straw that helped defused the bomb before departing in search of the biggest drink available. Grant then witnesses Cappy getting loaded unto an army ambulance along with the rest of the commando who stops to respectfully salute him before departing. He is then joined by Jean who asks him who he is. Just as he's about to answer, an FBI agent approaches him, addressing Grant by his official title of Doctor Grant and advises him he is being summoned by the Pentagon which causes Jean to leave but Grant calls her back and invites her to a coffee date, which she agrees as long as he is not flying. They both laugh and get into a car on their way to the Pentagon.

Two itinerant farm workers, George Milton and his simple-minded friend, Lennie Small, are forced to flee armed men after Lennie rips a woman's dress while trying to feel its material. They jump on a train and arrive at Soledad, California, where they take jobs as ranch hands. As they walk, George sees Lennie is carrying a dead mouse. George throws the mouse away, causing Lennie to cry that he misses the woman who gave him mice to play with. George reminds Lennie that the woman was his Aunt Clara, who stopped getting him pets because Lennie kept killing them by petting too hard. George promises Lennie a puppy if he stops crying. At nightfall, George tells Lennie to gather firewood so he can cook some beans, and becomes irate when Lennie whines about not having ketchup. George yells that Lennie has ruined his life by always getting into trouble. A contrite and confused Lennie offers to run away and live in a cave, but George mutters that Aunt Clara would not like him wandering off on his own. That night, George recites an oft-told dream of him and Lennie buying their own ranch, with lots of rabbits for Lennie to feed. Commanding Lennie to look around and remember where they are, George instructs him to return to this spot and hide in the bushes if he gets in trouble. In the morning, they arrive at the Tyler Ranch, where they meet an old, one-handed man named Candy. He takes George and Lennie to meet the "Boss," who yells at them for being a day late. During the interview, George explains that Lennie is his cousin and was kicked in the head by a horse when he was child. After stepping out of the ranch house, George admits to Lennie he lied about the horse and being cousins. Candy shows them the bunkhouse, where they run into the boss's son, Curley, a short man wearing one black glove. Curley demands to know why Lennie is late, and orders George to shut up and let Lennie talk for himself. After Curley leaves, Candy explains that Curley is a boxer, but still has a little man's dislike for anyone bigger than he is. George warns Lennie to keep clear of the boss's son. Curley's young and attractive wife pretends to look for her husband, but it is only an excuse for her to check out the new ranch hands. Her flirting turns George away, and he warns Lennie to stay away from her. At noon, the laborers arrive, including Slim, their foreman, and another ranch worker named Carlson, who asks Slim about his dog's puppies. When Slim says he drowned three because the mother could not produce enough milk, Carlson suggests they kill Candy's old mongrel and give him one of the surviving pups. After a hard day of haying, George asks Slim if Lennie can have one of the puppies. Impressed by how hard Lennie worked, Slim agrees. However, George informs Lennie that the puppies are too young to be separated from their mother, so Lennie beds down with the dogs. The next day, a mule throws a shoe and Slim orders George to take it to the barn. He arrives to find Curley's wife waiting, but her attempt to seduce him is interrupted by the arrival of "Crooks," a hunchbacked African-American stable man, and Curley. When Curley demands to know what George is up to, he answers that he is minding his own business. Curley warns he will beat George if he ever finds him minding his own business with his wife again. That night, Carlson and Slim pressure Candy into letting Carlson put his old dog out of its misery. When Candy hears the shot, he curls up on his bunk and cries. The next day, George tells Slim he lived near Lennie's Aunt Clara, and picked on Lennie when he was a boy. One day, they were playing near a river and George ordered Lennie to jump in. Lennie did, but could not swim, and almost drowned. When George got him to dry ground, Lennie forgot it was George who told him to jump in. From that moment on, George felt responsible for his friend, and when the aunt died, the two hit the road together. That night, George tells Lennie he knows of a farm they could buy when they get a few more dollars. Candy overhears and offers $350 dollars out of the $600 they need if they take him with them, because he is getting too old to work. George agrees. When Curley accuses Slim of sleeping with his wife, the foreman threatens to beat the little man. Seeing Lennie smiling about the farm, Curley thinks he is making fun of him. He punches Lennie in the face. The large man refuses to defend himself, until George yells for him to "get him." Lennie grabs Curley's hand and crushes it. Slim orders Curley to tell the boss he got his hand crushed in a harvester, and threatens to expose what really happened if he refuses. As George cleans the blood off his friend's face, Lennie asks if he can still feed the rabbits. The next night, George goes to town with the other men and leaves Lennie with the puppies. Later, George returns and finds Lennie talking to Crooks in the barn. As he walks Lennie to the bunkhouse, they meet Curley's wife, who wants to talk to someone, but George refuses, and she runs away in tears. The next morning, Curley's wife finds Lennie crying over the corpse of a puppy he accidentally killed while petting it too hard. Instead of leaving, she talks to Lennie about her dreams of being a movie star, and how she married Curley to be free of her mother. When Lennie states he likes stroking soft things, she suggests he touch her hair, but Lennie cannot control his strong hands. As he musses her hair, Curley's wife screams, and with his attempt to silence her, he accidentally breaks her neck. Lennie runs to the stream and hides in the bushes where he earlier agreed to go in times of trouble. Candy later finds the dead woman, and informs George. He believes Curley will lynch Lennie, but George vows he will not let anyone hurt his friend. The other men form a posse, and Slim tells George he can let Curley shoot Lennie or watch his friend go to jail. George steals a pistol and goes to the stream, where he finds Lennie. Hearing dogs approaching, George stands behind Lennie and regales him with dreams of a ranch full of rabbits, then shoots him in the back of the head.

In 1939, Captain Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) is a test pilot in the United States Army Air Corps. After a successful run and a subsequent crash landing in a prototype North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, McCormick greets his longtime friend, scientist Harry Finley (George Wendt). Finley confides that his latest experiment, "Project B", has succeeded in building a prototype chamber for cryogenic freezing. The following day, just as McCormick is about to propose to his girlfriend, Helen (Isabel Glasser), she goes into a coma following an automobile accident, with doctors doubting she will ever recover. McCormick insists he be put into suspended animation for one year, so he will not have to watch Helen die. Fifty-three years later, in 1992, 10-year-old airplane enthusiast Nat Cooper (Elijah Wood) and his friend Felix (Robert Hy Gorman) are playing inside the military storage warehouse housing the chamber, accidentally activating it and waking McCormick, leaving Nat's coat behind. McCormick awakens and escapes from the warehouse before realizing what year it is. He first approaches the military about his experiences, but they dismiss him as crazed; McCormick becomes more determined to learn what happened to him. McCormick follows the address on the jacket back to Nat, befriending him. While hiding in Nat's treehouse, he rescues Nat's mother Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis) from her abusive boyfriend Fred (Eric Pierpoint), slightly injuring his hand in the process. Claire fixes up his wound and a bond develops between the two; she allows McCormick to stay, and he and Nat build a simulated bomber-plane cockpit in Nat's treehouse so that McCormick can teach Nat how to fly. McCormick passes out and is hospitalized, where he discovers that his body is failing as his age begins to catch up with him. McCormick tracks down Finley's daughter Susan (Millie Slaven), who informs him her father died in a fire before she was born. She gives McCormick her father's journals, detailing the cryogenic process, and Finley notes disclose that the rapid aging is irreversible. Susan also reveals that Helen is still alive, but they escape before the FBI, who is now after McCormick, catch up with him. Claire drives McCormick to an air show and commandeers a B-52 bomber to fly to Helen's seaside-lighthouse home, with Nat stowing away on board. Claire gives Harry's journals to the FBI, for their plans to replicate and modernize the experiment. McCormick suffers another ageing attack, forcing Nat (who is now slightly familiar with the plane's controls after his simulated-training session with McCormick) to land the plane near Helen's house. The now-elderly McCormick reunites with the also-gray-and-wrinkled Helen and asks her to marry him; she happily accepts, proving that true love does indeed last forever. McCormick introduces Nat to Helen, and the film ends with the three joining hands and going for a seaside stroll together.

Extended version: In LA in 2029 AD, the world has become a wasteland of wrecked cars, destroyed buildings and fields filled with skeletons. The voice of Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) starts narrating that 'three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They only lived to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines.' A battle is starting between human guerrilla troops and a technically far superior robotic army, consisting of metal endoskeletons, huge movable tanks as well as giant flying hunter-killer drones. A man is saluted by his soldiers as he crosses a destroyed hallway and starts to inspect the battlefield from a safe distance. Sarah' s voice-over continues: "Skynet, the computer that controlled the machines, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance: John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was just a child. As before, the Resistance was able to send a lone warrior, as a protector for John." The opening titles show playgrounds ablaze with fire, and end with the camera zooming in on the face of a T-800. The scene goes back to the year 1995. A naked man (Arnold Schwarzenegger) appears from an orb of light on the side of the street. It is a Terminator, same model as the one that Sarah mentioned was programmed to kill her, entering a biker bar. As the patrons look at the naked man in bewilderment, Terminator scans the inside of the bar, finally identifying a tall man whose measurements match its own. Terminator tells the man that it needs his clothes, his motorcycle and his boots, much to the hilarity of the bikers. The big man puts out his cigar on the Terminator's chest, to no effect, but it prompts Terminator to break the guy's wrist and throw him into the kitchen. Other bikers take turns attacking the Terminator but it continues to violently beat them up until they break off. Terminator proceeds to the big man, who hands over his clothes and bike in fear. On the way out, the bar owner's attempts to intimidate the Terminator with his shotgun, but the Terminator ends up stealing both the gun and the man's sunglasses, and rides out on the motorcycle into the night. In a different part of town, a police officer calls in a strange electrical disturbance to Headquarters. He finds a strange round hole burned into a fence, and is then approached from behind by another naked man (Robert Patrick), more slender than the Terminator, who quickly incapacitates him. The man picks up the cop's gun, enters the police car in police uniform, and accesses the car's computer to find the address of John Connor. John Connor (Edward Furlong) lives with his foster parents Todd (Xander Berkeley) and Janelle Voight (Jenette Goldstein), for whom he has minimal respect, and leaves on his dirt bike with his friend Tim (Danny Cooksey). Sarah resides in the Pescadero State Hospital, a mental institution where psychiatrist Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen) fills in a group of interns about her past psychiatric history. He amazes them with her story about the first Terminator trying to kill her, and that her son John was fathered by a time-travelling soldier sent from 2029 to protect her. Dr. Silberman asks a few orderlies to prepare Sarah for her review later the afternoon. Sarah does not want to take her medication, to which the orderlies proceed to violently beat her and force-feed the meds to her. The fake police man arrives at the Voight residence, requesting to see John and ask him a few questions. Since Todd and Janelle don't know where John went off to on his bike, they give him John's photograph, and tell the officer that another big man on a motorcycle also came by to ask the same thing. The officer tells them not to worry about that man, and leaves, while John uses an illegal device to steal money from an ATM, so they can play video games at the Galleria Mall. Tim finds a picture of Sarah in John's bag (it's the picture seen in the previous film, the one made at the end of the movie), and John explains that Sarah is a complete psycho because she got arrested for trying to blow up a computer factory. Under the influence of the medication, Sarah has a dream vision of Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) telling her that John is in danger and she needs to save him. The vision ends with her walking behind Reese, ending up outside on a playground full of people, when suddenly, a very bright flash appears in the sky, and wakes her up. During her review, footage of an earlier session is played back, featuring a depressed Sarah, describing a returning dream of children being burned to a crisp and then blown away by nuclear fire. The video ends with a loudly raving Sarah who unsuccessfully tries to convince everyone that the end of the world is near. Sarah says that she has improved now, and no longer believes in her ordeal with the Terminator, nor that the factory where she destroyed it kept the remains of the cyborg a secret. However, in a computer lab elsewhere in the city, a computer developer called Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) is asked permission to conduct a test with a fragment of a computer chip, and a metal robot arm that was clearly once attached to a Terminator. Sarah tries to reason with Dr. Silberman to transfer her to a medium-security wing and let her contact her son, but he believes that she is only saying things he wants to hear, and refuses. Sarah breaks out in anger and attacks him, but gets heavily sedated by the staff. Meanwhile, from an overpass, the Terminator identifies John passing by on his bike below, and goes after him. The cop asks a few girls about John, and is told to find him at the Galleria. The cop arrives first at the arcade hall, using the picture to ask people about John; luckily, he also asks Tim, who feigns ignorance and then proceeds to warn John that the police are looking for him. John flees through a series of hallways, but encounters the Terminator, who brandishes a loaded shotgun. John reverses course, but runs into the fake cop, who fires his pistol, but the Terminator shields John from the bullets. It returns several heavy shotgun rounds into the cop, who collapses to the floor. However, the huge gaping holes in his body get filled quickly and he is back on his feet. After a brief struggle through a wall and inside a fashion store, the cop gets the upper hand and throws Terminator out of the shop's window. As Terminator gets up, the cop returns to chasing John who has escaped on his dirt bike. The cop even commandeers a semi-truck in his pursuit of John, who hopes to lose him in a dry canal, but even there the cop follows him by driving in. The Terminator follows them on his motorcycle alongside the canal. A long chase follows, where Terminator manages to jump into the canal, get in front of the truck and pick up John before he gets crushed by it. Then the Terminator blows the truck's tire, causing it to crash into a column and blow up in flames. But after they leave, the cop, who is apparently a fully metal android, walks from it unharmed. John asks the Terminator to pull over the motorcycle, realizing that the Terminator has not come to kill him. The Terminator explains it is a T-800, which John himself reprogrammed 35 years in the future to be his protector in the present. The other guy is a T-1000: an advanced type of Terminator made of liquid metal that will try and get John if he goes back home. Terminator's plan is to leave the city to escape the T-1000, but John insists on calling his foster parents first to warn them. Over the line, John hears his dog Max barking, and senses that something is off when speaking to Janelle, so Terminator fakes John's voice and asks Janelle about "Wolfie". Upon receiving the wrong answer, Terminator tells John that his foster parents are dead. At the Voight residence, it is revealed that the T-1000 has taken Janelle's shape and killed Tod. It goes out to the dog, killing it and seeing that its collar reads "Max"; it knows it has been deceived. The Terminator explains to John that the T-1000 can imitate everything of equal size that it has sampled previously by physical contact. It can't become a bomb or other complex machines with chemicals and moving parts, but it can form knives and stabbing weapons. At the hospital, a detective shows Sarah old CCTV photos of the Terminator while killing 17 police officers in 1984, as well as new pictures taken today at the mall from what looks like the same man. They tell her that John is missing, his foster parents were found murdered, and ask her what she knows about this man. As Sarah remains non-responsive, she is taken back to her cell while Dr. Silberman lets out the detectives. John tells about his childhood, when Sarah dragged him to places like Nicaragua and trained with ex-soldiers to teach him to become the "big military leader". When she was arrested, he started to believe she was crazy, but now he realizes that she was right about everything. He wants to go to the mental hospital to save her, but Terminator refuses, stating that T-1000 will likely go there, kill Sarah and imitate her to get to John. Upon hearing this, John wants to go immediately, but Terminator stops him, as Sarah is not a mission priority. They argue, which attracts two local men, and the ensuing struggle almost costs one of them his life; however, John also learns that the Terminator is mission-bound to obey his orders over any of its own priorities, so he tells the Terminator to help him rescue Sarah. Sarah is strapped to her bed by one of the abusive orderlies, but she has secretly taken a paperclip from the detectives, and uses it to open her restraints and cell door. In the meanwhile, the T-1000 has arrived at Pescadero, and disguised itself as part of the floor. It reshapes itself as one of the passing guards, killing and impersonating him to get access to the high-security wing. Then John and the Terminator arrive, with John making the T-800 swear to stop killing people. Terminator demonstrates his liberal interpretation of this order by wounding the guard outside in order to get access to the hospital. Sarah has made her way to Dr. Silberman by beating up several orderlies, using him as a hostage to get past the guard booth out of the high-security ward. Silberman manages to get away, so Sarah runs off and loses a group of orderlies chasing her, and escapes further into the building, trying to get out through an elevator. However, suddenly, the Terminator comes out, and Sarah naturally thinks it is there to kill her again. In a panic, she flees back to where she came from, and gets overpowered by the orderlies and Silberman who have found her again. Terminator violently beats them up, and John assures her that the Terminator is there to help them. Suddenly, the T-1000 comes up, oozing through a door with bars in the hallway (much to the amazement of an incredulous Silberman), so John, Sarah and the Terminator escape into the elevator. T-1000 gets into the shaft and assaults them through the roof with blades it creates from its arms, but they finally reach the garage and escape with a police car. T-1000 gives chase on foot, but after several close calls, they finally manage to leave him behind. As it returns to the hospital, it greets an approaching motorcycle cop, complimenting him on his vehicle. Sarah admonishes John for coming to the hospital to rescue her as he is way too important for that, much to John's grief. Terminator asks about John's crying, but John says it's nothing. They take shelter for the night in an abandoned gas station, to tend to Sarah's wounds and those of the Terminator, who says that his will heal over time so he can continue posing as human. John asks him if he can learn to act more human too: Terminator says that his CPU is a learning computer, but Skynet sets it to read-only when they are sent out alone (they don't want their soldiers to do much thinking). On John's suggestion, they open the T-800's metal skull and access his chip to reset it, but Sarah wants to use that opportunity to destroy it, as she doesn't trust the Terminator. However, John manages to show some leadership qualities by convincing her otherwise. The next morning, they leave in an old abandoned car to go south to hide from the T-1000. John takes the opportunity to teach Terminator some cooler ways of communication (like "Hasta La Vista, baby" when outshining someone). After a while, they stop at a gas pump and fast-food restaurant, where John tries to teach Terminator how to smile (but the result is less than convincing). As they eat, John notices a couple of young boys playing with toy guns. It prompts him to contemplate whether humanity will make it as a species; Terminator responds that it is in humanity's nature to destroy themselves. As they leave again, Sarah asks the Terminator about who is responsible for building Skynet. The Terminator tells her that it is Miles Bennett Dyson, a high-ranking employee at Cyberdyne Systems, who will invent a new microprocessor in a few months that revolutionizes the entire military computer system. Cyberdyne computers will completely replace human functions and decisions in strategic defense systems as the Skynet program goes online on August 4th, 1997. It learns at such a fast rate that it becomes self-aware on August 29th. As the humans try to shut it down in a panic, Skynet starts a nuclear strike that plunges the Earth's nations into a nuclear war. Sarah says that she wants to know everything there is to know about Dyson. In the meanwhile, an unsuspecting Dyson is hitting a dead end while working at home on his microprocessor. He explains to his wife Tarissa (S. Epatha Merkerson) that his new invention will be such an advanced learning machine that it can replace people as pilots, and thereby eliminate human errors. But given that the project is currently going nowhere, he agrees to leave it for now, and take his wife and two children to the water park, as promised. Sarah, John and the Terminator arrive at a desert trailer park that is strewn with old, stripped vehicles. It belongs to Enrique Salceda (Castulo Guerra) and his family, a long-time friend who took Sarah and John in long ago. Terminator is introduced as 'Uncle Bob', and looks at one of Enrique's toddlers in fascination. Sarah tells Enrique that they need the weapons that she left there for safekeeping, as well as clothes, food, and a truck. John and Terminator are put on weapons detail, so Terminator opens an old weapons cache that is filled with Sarah's guns. Sarah tells Enrique that his compound is no longer safe; they will cross the border tonight, and he and his family will need to leave as well. While the Terminator makes a selection of weapons (including a huge minigun that almost makes it smile), John explains that he grew up in places like this, learning to work with weapons and explosives until his mother got busted. He asks Terminator if it ever gets scared of dying, but it responds that it is only concerned with staying functional until its mission is complete; something John can relate to. They start fixing the truck they will be using to cross the border, and talk some more about John's previous father figures, with segues into the lack of his real father in his life, Kyle Reese. Although he and Sarah were only together for one night, John sometimes catches her crying for him. The Terminator asks why people cry, so John tries to explain that it comes from pain, but not just the physical pain. They fool around some more as John teach Terminator a high-five and a thumbs-up, while Sarah, sitting at a wooden table, looks on: "Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop, it would never leave him, it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice." Sarah starts carving some letters into the table while watching Enrique's kids play. She briefly rests her head, and falls asleep. She finds herself back on the playground, but separated from the other people by a fence. One of the people is a young version of herself, playing with an infant John. She tries to warn them by yelling and loudly thrashing the fence, but no sound comes out of her mouth. Suddenly, a blinding flash of light appears in the sky, coming from the familiar mushroom shape of a nuclear explosion. Sarah and the people scream as they instantly catch fire, while the shockwave of the bomb turns buildings and vehicles into instant rubble; and just when the wave blows all the charred remains of people away, like in the dream she described earlier, Sarah awakens with a shock. She looks at the two words she carved into the table: NO FATE. The message is clear to her. Sarah packs a rifle and a bag, throws them in the car and leaves, much to John's shock and surprise. Enrique tells him that he and Terminator will leave south tonight, and that Sarah will catch up with them later. Pondering at the picnic table, they note the words NO FATE; John explains that it is a message from his future self to Sarah, one that he had Kyle memorize: 'The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.' They deduce that Sarah intends to change the future, and is going after Miles Dyson. They leave in a hurry in the fixed truck, but Terminator says that here is a danger that the T-1000 anticipates this move, and will be waiting for them; also, Dyson's death may actually prevent Judgment Day. John doesn't want to hear it, and scolds the Terminator for still not understanding that people have feelings, and actually care whether they live or die. Sarah arrives at the Dyson residence, and sets up her laser-sighted rifle in the garden. She is ready to shoot Miles, who is sitting at his computer, but as she fires, he is briefly distracted by his son playing, and the bullet misses. Sarah opens automatic fire on Miles, who hides behind his desk and yells at his wife and son to flee the house. As Sarah empties her clip, she take a sidearm and enters the house, shooting a fleeing Miles in the arm. His son comes back to shield his father, but in spite of Sarah's earlier resolve, she can't bring herself to kill Miles in front of his wife and son, and curls up in a corner. John arrives with The Terminator, who does a quick check and determines that Miles injury is only a flesh wound. John embraces his mother, who is realizing that she was about to become a Terminator herself, and is finally able to return her love for him. John instructs Terminator to show Miles and Tarissa who they are: in a grotesque demonstration, Terminator makes several cuts in the flesh of his arm, and pulls away the skin to show the metal arm underneath, much to the couple's shock. The group sits down at the kitchen table as Sarah narrates: "Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down: Skynet, Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It's not everyday you find out that you're responsible for three billion deaths. He took it pretty well." Dyson argues that he couldn't have known that his invention would cause such misery, but Sarah scoffs that it's always men who build terrible weapons without regards for the possible consequences. Dyson agrees to quit at Cyberdyne and stop working on his microchip, but Terminator convinces him that no one must be allowed to finish his work: all the research and files at Cyberdyne and his house will have to go. Dyson also mentions the chip at the Cyberdyne vault: although he was never told where it came from, it must have been from the previous Terminator. All work on his new microprocessor was based on this defect chip, so it must be destroyed to stop the development of Skynet. Sarah narrates: "The future, always so clear to me, has become like a black highway at night. We were in uncharted territory now... making up history as we went along." Sarah, John, Miles and Terminator arrive at Cyberdyne, and after incapacitating the guard, they make their way to the research lab. However, another guard has just returned from his round, finds his bound and gagged colleague, and trips the silent alarm. Not only does this alert the police, it also resets all code-protected doors and devices inside the building. John uses his illegal ATM device to retrieve the vault key from a box, while Terminator blows an access hole into the lab with his M-79 grenade launcher. At that time, the T-1000, now dressed as a motorcycle cop, arrives at the Dyson residence, finding it deserted and all computers and papers gone up in flames. Its police walkie-talkie calls upon all units to go to the Cyberdyne building where a robbery is in progress by multiple armed suspects. Sarah and Terminator are gathering and smashing all the files and hard discs from the lab, while Miles destroys the model of his microchip himself, after all the years that he has worked on it. John has finally retrieved the vault key, but notices the huge police force standing outside, including a circling helicopter. While Terminator and Sarah are wiring up barrels of explosives for remote detonation, John warns them about the police, so Terminator steps out to deal with them (as promised, with non-lethal means). It breaks a window on the second floor, and destroys all police cars with the minigun and grenade launcher, and disperses the police with tear gas grenades. As its internal processor notes, there are no casualties, and it goes back inside. A SWAT Team, however, prepares to go inside the building. John and Miles manage to open the vault with their keys, and take both the chip and the Terminator arm with them. They get back to the lab, where Sarah and Terminator have just finished setting up the explosives. As they get ready to leave, the lab door suddenly bursts open, with the SWAT Team members pouring in and opening automatic fire. John and Terminator flee outside and Sarah manages to take cover, but Miles is hit several times, and stoops to the ground in shock. He shows Sarah that he is holding the detonator before she makes a run towards the lab's clean room, but John and Terminator note on the CCTV that there is no exit from there. Terminator bursts through a wall to get Sarah out, and they leave towards the elevators. The SWAT Team members close in on a dying and hyperventilating Miles, who is now holding a piece of his microprocessor model over the detonator, saying that he doesn't know how long he will be able to hold it. The SWAT Team immediately pulls out, and as they exit the building and John, Sarah and Terminator take an elevator down, Miles' breathing slows down, until he finally drops the weight on the detonator. The Cyberdyne building explodes in a blinding ball of fire. After temporarily stalling, the elevator reaches the first floor, but the SWAT Team is waiting farther ahead in the lobby, and fires off several rounds of tear gas. John and Sarah protect themselves with a gas mask, while the Terminator goes out to deal with the SWAT members, saying its signature line "I'll be back." It sustains heavy machine gun fire that tears up one side of his face, but it is finally able to neutralize the team with some strategically placed leg shots and tear gas grenades. It goes outside, commandeers the SWAT Team van, and drives it through the front entrance to pick up John and Sarah. In the meanwhile, T-1000 has arrived at the scene, and driven its motorcycle up the stairs of the burnt-down building, finding the lab having been totally destroyed. It suddenly hears the SWAT van leave and the police firing upon it, so it wastes no time, accelerates its motorcycle and drives it off the edge of the second floor towards the hovering helicopter. It jumps off, clamps itself to the canopy, breaks the glass with a quick head-butt, and under the incredulous eyes of the pilot, it oozes through the hole and into the cockpit. It tells him to get out as its reforms into its human shape, and starts flying in pursuit of the van. John and Sarah are in the back of the van as the Terminator drives it over a freeway, avoiding other cars and trucks at high speed, while Sarah fires an M-16 back at the T-1000. They are unable to shake it off, even when driving under an overpass, and the T-1000 eventually manages to shoot Sarah in the thigh. The Terminator hits the breaks, causing the helicopter to crash into the back of the van, destroying it. The van moves on, but damage to the back causes a tire to blow, making the van swerve and finally slam on its side. A tanker truck driver has stopped behind the helicopter wreckage, looking in amazement as the T-1000 walks from it unharmed, but unfortunately, T-1000 fatally stabs him and takes hold of his truck to resume its pursuit. John, Terminator and a wounded Sarah commandeer a smaller truck from a passing driver, and drive off with the T-1000's tanker truck in hot pursuit. Terminator's guns and grenade launcher are insufficient to keep the truck at bay, so it tells John to take the off-ramp, steps over to the T-1000's cabin and turns the wheel, making the truck tip over. John and Sarah drive their truck into a factory, slamming into a fork lift, as the T-1000's truck slides over the floor, hits a gate and breaks in two, with Terminator jumping off and rolling to safety. The crash causes the truck's cargo of liquid nitrogen to be released, freezing the T-1000 to the floor as it tries to walk through. In an effort to proceed, it breaks off several limbs until it remains motionless. Terminator destroys it with his sidearm, using the words "Hasta la vista, baby." As the pieces of the frozen T-1000 spread out, they suddenly realize they are inside a steel mill; sparks fly around, and the ambient temperature slowly melts the broken pieces back into liquid metal, as they ooze together and the T-1000 reappears again in his fake cop format. John and Terminator move further inside the steel mill to avoid the T-1000, dragging the wounded Sarah with them. Although T-1000 seems fully functional again, it does seem to have suffered some negative effects from the freezing: whenever part of its body touches something like a railing or an industrial floor, that part involuntarily mimics that object. Terminator tells John and Sarah to go ahead while it will make a stand, much to John's anguish. As soon as T-1000 arrives, Terminator engages it in a fierce fist fight, but it simply cannot inflict any permanent damage onto it, as T-1000 simply reforms with every beat. Eventually, it pushes Terminator's left arm into a giant cogwheel, crushing it and immobilizing its foe, and leaves off to find John. Terminator picks up a steel rod and simply amputates its own arm to set itself free. Sarah and John get to a higher platform, as they see T-1000 approaching. Sarah uses a chain to lower John onto a conveyor belt below, but decides to stay behind and fight to give John more time to escape, much to John's anguish. She uses her shotgun to fire at the T-1000 a few times, but eventually it gets close enough to pierce her shoulder with its index finger. The android tortures her to get her to call John back, but she refuses, and just as it is about to pierce her head, Terminator arrives and uses its steel rod to skewer the T-1000. A new fight ensues as Sarah scrambles off to safety, but with only one arm, Terminator is even less of a match to the quick and agile T-1000, which uses the iron bar to mercilessly pound its enemy to the ground. Then, it uses a suspended steel bar to crush Terminator's head several times, during which it loses its left eye. As it drags itself towards the grenade launcher that it has dropped, the T-1000 finally eliminates Terminator by driving the steel rod through its back; Terminator's red eye light goes out as the android deactivates. While Sarah is fighting her injuries and starts reloading her shotgun, and John is looking for a way out of the conveyor belt, Terminator manages to reactivate itself by finding an alternate power route within its circuits. It removes the iron rod from its body and grabs the grenade launcher. John hears Sarah calling for him, and after a brief climb to the highest platform, he finds her struggling to stay upright. Just as he wants to approach her, another Sarah appears behind the first, brandishing the shotgun, telling him to get out of the way. John notices that the first Sarah's' feet seem fused to the grated floor, indicating that she is, in fact, the T-1000. Real Sarah fires many rounds into her counterpart, which changes back into the fake cop, and her shots bring T-1000 teetering to the edge of the platform, but before she can shoot it off, her shotgun clicks, signifying it is empty. John and Sarah make ready to run away again, but as they turn, they see Terminator arriving from behind on a conveyor belt. It shoots T-1000 with the grenade launcher, and the exploding grenade turns the android in a grotesque shape of limbs and a head, which loses balances and plunges into a vat of molten steel below. The effect is devastating: the T-1000 thrashes and shrieks as it goes through all its previous iterations: Janelle, the hospital guard, the motor cop, then a weird collection of heads and finally a face that turns inside-out, before completely dissolving and dissipating. John helps the half-destroyed Terminator get up, which says that the T-1000 got "terminated". They throw the metal arm and the chip in the molten steel as well, believing that Judgment Day is finally averted. However, the Terminator reminds them that there is still one more chip that must be destroyed, pointing at its skull. It gives Sarah the controls of an electric pulley connected to a chain, stating that it cannot self-terminate, and she must lower it into the steel. John cries and begs Terminator to stay with them, but it states that it must end here. Finally, John orders his friend not to go. After a long pause, the Terminator states that it now understands why he cries; but it is something that it will never be able to do. John gives Terminator a final hug, and Sarah shakes hands with it, as it steps up the chain and is slowly lowered down into the steel. The heat slowly dissolves the android, and as its head disappears below the steel, Terminator does a final thumbs-up to his young protegee before its internal processor shuts down. Sarah and John look down into the steel as John cries, with Sarah looking into the camera for her final narration: "The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too."

An intersecting tale with a multitude of characters living lives which, in one way or another, revolve around an old apartment block scheduled to be demolished. City of Hope is a portrait of a typical middle-sized American city of the present day. The crux of the story is an old apartment block which stands in the way of a major commercial development. Joe Rinaldi is the building contractor who owns the buildings and is being pressured to torch them to permit the development to occur. His estranged son Nick soon becomes a pawn in the power politics of the city. Corrupt Mayor Baci and policeman O'Brien are determined to push the development, while idealistic city councilman Wynn soon finds himself torn between what he knows is right and what his Black constituents want. —Reid Gagle John Sayles' urban drama follows the intersecting lives of a dozen or more characters as they move through their lives, affect one another without realizing it, and do their best to survive--both within and outside of legality--in the crumbling cityscape of the ironic title. —Susan C. Mitchell <susanm@indirect.com>

Just released from prison, Max Washington must decide which of his previous professions to return to: burglary or tap-dancing. Max Washington has just been released from prison after serving time for burglary. He returns to his old hangout, a hoofer (tap-dancer) club. His former girlfriend Amy, who still works at the club as a tap instructor, is less than thrilled to see him. Her father, Little Mo, is happy to see him, because he has plans for a show involving Max. In addition, Max's old partners in crime have another job they want him to do. —Brian W Martz <B.Martz@Genie.com>

A young woman and her grandmother living in an isolated farmhouse are kidnapped by aliens.

A wannabe blues-guitar virtuoso finds an old blues player and hopes he can teach him a long-lost song by legendary musician, Robert Johnson. Eugene is an extraordinary talent in classic guitar, but he dreams of being a famous blues guitarist, so he investigates to find a storied lost song. He asks legendary blues musician Willie Brown to help him, but Willie demands to be sprung from the old-people's prison first and to really learn the blues on the way to its origin: the Mississippi Delta. Eugene doesn't know yet about Willie's deal with the devil, which he now wishes to revoke. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de> Eugene Martone, the "Lightning Boy", is a lover of blues. He studies guitar at Julliard, but he is looking for the 30th unknown song of Roberto Johnson. One day, he meets Willie Brown, the "Blind Dog," in an old-folks' home and is convinced that he possess the lost song. Eugene helps Willie to escape the asylum and goes with him to Mississippi. They can just afford a bus ticket from New York to halfway to Mississippi, so they must hitchhike the rest of the way, and doing so they meet Frances, a girl who left home and wishes to be a dancer in Los Angeles. The trio passes through many strange adventures and situations together, and the climax is the guitar duel between Eugene and Jack Butler. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil