Tremors 2 movie review

Here's what you need to know; Earl has moved on with his life after his brush with the Graboid menace in Perfection, but now an attack in a Mexican oil field has brought him back into the Graboid hunting business, but while Earl and his new side kick get to hunting, the Graboids have something new in store, and soon the team learn just how unprepared they really are.

Tremors 2 starts off well enough, with an oil field worker fleeing from a Graboid, in a fairly well done sequence that ends like you'd expect it does. Next we meet one of our returning heroes from the first Tremors, Earl, who is perhaps a wee bit cartoony in this film, not overly so, about as cheesy as Burt and his wife were in the original film, He's missing a bit of the friendship element without Val, and that does detract from his character, but he's still not bad. Speaking of not bad returning characters, Burt's back, easily the coolest character in the first film is still the coolest one here, with his big-ass truck packed with 2 tons of C4 and his Grizzly Big Boar anti-tank gun, it's silly, but he's still a badass, and it's still awesome. the new characters are less interesting however, Grady may be annoying to some, and I understand why, thanks to his "sunny disposition" and his near constant talking, but I personally don't mind him, he's a serviceable side kick and when he first see's a Graboid is a pretty amusing scene, and his recklessness can also be funny at times. Kate on the other hand really isn't all that interesting, while she does come up with some cool plans here and there, she's not as interesting or as smart as Rhonda from the last film, and while I can get over the bolted on romance element from the first film, the romance element in this one really is difficult to ignore, it's stupid, and feels even more bolted on than the first one. they're really the characters you're going to be stuck with, everyone else either dies in five minutes or is some oil field worker with about 5 minutes of screen time, usually followed by death. the only one who's name I remember is Pedro, and that's because his name is Pedro and his death is easily the most gruesome. All things considered then, I like 3 of the characters, and am moderately indifferent the rest of them, it's a shame that Kate is such a flat character and the romance element is equally as flat, and as the film approaches it's explosive conclusion, the romance just starts becoming clumsy. Speaking of conclusions, I like at least the first half of this film's story, it's cool that the film doesn't take place in the same place, instead in a new location, and I really like the idea of Graboid hunting. It's disappointing that the Graboids are no longer even remotely as threatening as they were in the first one, but blowing them up with RC cars and C4 looks like so much fun, it really does, and it makes for a few really funny scenes both with the seismograph and with the RCXDs Earl, Grady and Burt deploy to kill the Graboids.

But while Graboid hunting with RCXDs looks like a crazy amount of fun, the Graboids in this film have a trick up their sleeves, and I don't know what to think about it. on one hand it is a cool idea that the Graboids can go through metamorphosis and become something new, but on the other hand it is stupid that what they turn into is weird dodo looking things that can only see heat and reproduce by vomiting up babies after eating enough food, while this does provide the crew with a new threat to face as the Graboids stop being dangerous, they just look silly, which is made all the more strange when you consider the very well done build up to their reveal, just like the Graboids in the first Tremors, they aren't shown until the end of a slow burn as they learn that something is happening to the Graboids and whatever it is is also destroying cars and radio equipment, but it's intentionally humorous how small and odd looking they are, and any fear they could have built around them is extinguished in the process. that said, as they crack into the food supplies and their numbers start exploding, it does get interesting, even if it gets to a point where the familiarity of the crew stranded on high ground bickering started getting tired, but I will say I really like this film's finale, which is considerably bigger than the first, and louder, and more destructive. This is a monster movie, so now let's go into special effects, and unlike the first one, it's a bit of a mixed bag. a lot of the time Tremors 2 uses models and props for its effects, which are as cool here as they were in the first one, but this film, like the Graboids, has a new trick up it's leave, and like the Shriekers, it's somewhat hit and miss. That trick is CG, this is a post-Jurassic Park world after all, and let me tell you, it has not aged all that well, at all. At best, it's not the worst CG used in a film from the 1990's, that I've seen anyway, and considering the film's budget, it could be worse, but it still doesn't look great, the practical effects, as you'd expect, look better, and actually still look pretty good.

There are some things in Tremors 2 that I really like, like how much fun it looks to hunt Graboids, the interesting new setting and the very well done practical effects, but the characters are a mixed bag, and the new monsters are too strange to really go either way, they just don't make a lot of sense, and some of the recycled formula from the first film does feel a bit tired, but that doesn't detract from how much fun the first half of this film is, or how awesome it's finale is, all in all I like Tremors 2, and I would recommend it, for sure.