We saw Terminator 2 in 4DX and it’s crazy!

An impressive experience that transforms James Cameron’s masterpiece into a truly immersive attraction. Shakes, wind tunnels and explosions: story of a session as spectacular as it was exhausting.

A children’s playground in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Peaceful. Bucolic. Then a flash of lightning dazzles the sky… and blinds the room. It’s the apocalypse, the end of the world. Sarah Connor looks helplessly at all these children charred by the nuclear fire. Charred, blown like burnt paper. At the same time, the breath of the room ruffles our feathers. Our seats never stop shaking, as if the earth was crumbling beneath our feet.

Welcome to Terminator 2: Judgment Day4DX 3D version.

For the first time, James Cameron’s masterpiece is being released in France in this spectacular format, on the occasion of its 35th anniversary. Since September 2, 2026, and for one week only, the film has been released as an event (around 20 euros per ticket) which transforms these two hours into a real physical experience.

Because Terminator 2 is probably one of the best-made films for 4DX. An avalanche of action, chases, explosions and shootouts that fits perfectly with the moving seats, fans and other effects that appear around us. At this level, we are sometimes more in the attraction of Futuroscope than in the 7th art.

The 3D conversion is still solid. James Cameron oversaw the 3D conversion and 4K remastering of Terminator 2made for the film’s release in 2017, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. A decade later, this 3D version is enriched with 4DX.

And it’s worth it… provided you already know the film by heart.

Because watching the clash of men and machines for 2 hours and 15 minutes in dynamic cinema mode is almost a test of endurance. And inevitably, the narration and the emotion tend to be drowned out in the spectacle. But whatever. That’s what we came for, right? So be careful, put your hands in, stick to the seat… and off you go!

From the introductory scene, in the year 2029, on this field of ruins littered with skulls crushed by machines, things shake hard. Skynet’s tanks deploy in open battle against humanity’s last pocket of resistance, led by John Connor. Laser rifle fire blasts in all directions and, in our ears, small wind tunnels simulate the projectiles grazing us.

Then back to 1995. The two Terminators arrive in dark alleys. Lightning flashes in the room. A huge blow of a fan blows in our faces, reproducing the cult entrance on stage of the two robots from the future. Awesome feeling.

The crazy sequences keep coming. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then at the height of his art, burst onto the screen as a relentless machine who little by little discovers human emotions. His confrontation with the T-1000 takes on an almost biblical dimension when they clash with guns in the corridors of the shopping mall. Each gunshot is accompanied by the blast in our ears. A current of air passes through us as if the bullets were really whistling above our heads.

Then comes the sequence of the truck against the Harley. Certainly the most spectacular of this 4DX session. The T-1000, at the wheel of its enormous towing truck, relentlessly tracks little John Connor on his dirt bike, in the middle of the dry drainage canals of Los Angeles. The T-800 appears on his Harley-Davidson and manages to pull the boy out of danger with one hand. Our chair never stops shaking us in all directions. The fans spin wildly to reproduce the sensation of speed of the chase playing out before our eyes. Each impact causes a violent jerk in the seat. We are carried around in all directions, like John on his two-wheeler in the hands of his protector. We gasp with him. Until the cab of the semi-trailer smashed onto the deck.

After thirty minutes, we already need to catch our breath.

But it’s far from over. The cult moments of Cameron’s classic take on a new dimension, while our chair never stops going up, down, rocking, vibrating.

What follows is the epic escape from the psychiatric hospital. The impressive explosion of the Cyberdyne building. The helicopter chase, hair-raising, literally.

Then the final fight between the two Terminators who smash each other in a roar of screaming metal. We feel each impact pass through the chair as if it were us who had just suffered them. The final blows of the metal bar which pierce the T-800 are felt right down to our spine, while the backrest multiplies the impacts which tease our lower back. It’s powerful. Scwharzy ends up shooting his rival and sending him to melt.

Hasta la vista, baby. We are rinsed.

We leave the room completely stunned. A little haggard after having experienced two hours of roller coaster and pushes. The 4DX does not transform Terminator 2 into a better film than it was. It makes it something else: a spectacular attraction, sometimes exhausting, but terribly fun.

And despite the physical shock, what remains at the end of the day is perhaps precisely the sensation that this Last Judgment is – and will remain – an exceptionally successful sequel.

Visionary even. Because in 2026, in the light of ChatGPT and AI of all codes, how can we not look at Skynet differently? How can we not see in the uprising of machines imagined by Cameron the beginnings of a fear which now accompanies us in the real world? Is the uprising of machines also our future? Sarah Connor already had the answer: the future is never written. No Fate.