A SHORT BUT STUNNING `T2:3D'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

``Terminator 2: 3D'' may not technically be state-of-the-art, reach-out-and-grab-ya cinema. It's been running at the Universal Studios theme park in Florida for three years, and somebody, somewhere must have improved on the machinery since then.

But no one is going to top the combined creative expertise of co-directors James Cameron, multi-Oscar-winning makeup maven Stan Winston and special-effects expert John Bruno for some time to come. At a reportedly record-setting cost per each of its 12 minutes, ``T2:3D'' not only delivers megabang for the megabucks, it works up immensely imaginative depth tricks and awesome sci-fi spectacle.

The film is the centerpiece of an attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood that opens to the public on Thursday. The show comes complete with a waiting area designed to resemble the headquarters of Cyberdyne Systems (the company that builds the mankind-hating computers), a nauseatingly chirpy corporate hostess (whose subsequent, cheer-inducing demise makes for ironic fun in the midst of Universal's corporate entertainment complex) and some live-action rebels who shoot off guns and drive motorcycles through the auditorium. The theater seats move slightly, but it's only a smidgen of the hydraulic action you experience at Disneyland's Star Tours.

``T2:3D'' is primarily a visual experience, and it's a short but splendid one. Featuring the stars of Cameron's 1991 feature ``Terminator 2: Judgment Day,'' Arnold Schwarzenegger and Edward Furlong, it's a trip from today into the ruined future of 2026, when Cyberdyne's massive Skynet computer has just about succeeded in wiping out the human race with its demonic war machines.

Schwarzenegger's heroically reprogrammed superandroid and his young charge barrel across the blasted landscape on a Harley, blowing away pursuing hovercraft and skeletal metal terminators as they go. They're stalked by miniature floating hunters - silvery disks that make wonderful 3-D skeet targets - as they navigate the rubble outside Skynet's headquarters.

Once our heroes descend into the belly of the mechanical beast, extra screens open up, a gigantic spiderlike terminator made of that liquid metal comes at them (and us), and Arnold saves the world while making bad, deadpan puns. It's a descent into wraparound, high-tech hell.

True, there's not much of a story here. Indeed, ``T2:3D'' isn't even logically the sequel to ``Judgment Day'' it claims to be, since both the Arnold terminator and Skynet chip were destroyed at the end of that movie.

But it is the purest 12 minutes of sheer adrenaline immersion ever filmed. Cameron's cameras move with a speed and agility never before seen in 3-D, the stereoscopic effects are thoroughly integrated into the action, and the chillingly beautiful design elements could not have been realized more convincingly.

You'll have to pay for the rest of the Universal park in order to see ``T2:3D.'' And you'll have to pass through a storeful of T2 merchandise on your way out of the theater. Some might consider that a high price for techno-artistic progress. But most will likely wonder why every dozen minutes of movie can't be as exciting as these, regardless of what they cost.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Terminator 2: 3D'' (not rated; violence, children in jeopardy).

The stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong.

Behind the scenes: Directed by James Cameron, Stan Winston and John Bruno. Written by Cameron, Gary Goddard and Adam Bezark. Produced by Chuck Comisky. Released by Universal Studios Hollywood.

Running time: 12 minutes.

Playing: Universal Studios Hollywood, beginning Thursday.

Our rating: Four stars.