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Python 2
2002 - R - 89 Mins.
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| Director: L.A. McConnell | | Producer: John Capilla | | Written By: Jeff Rank | | Starring: William Zabka, Dana Ashbrook, Simmone Mackinnon, Alex Jolig, Vladimir Kolev |
| Review by: Joe Rickey |
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A sequel to the corny and otherwise awful 2000 original (and I'm using the term "original" very loosely), the appropriately titled 'Python 2' ignores the events of the first one aside from the returning of William Zabka's CIA character, which is for the best. Instead, it tells the story of a giant snake created by the U.S. Government for unknown but assuredly diabolical intentions that is captured in Russia. How it ended up in Russia in the first place is a mystery for the ages. Once captured, it is brought to a Russian military base, where, as you can probably deduce, it breaks loose and people start dying. The resulting film is even worse, if that is even possible, than the original.
This film basically stinks from its very first scene in which a cadre of heavily-armed soldiers (really, is there any other kind?) are being hunted by the title reptile. The scene is poorly lit to compensate for the dreadful CGI as the snake looks like something you might see in a PsOne video game. The editing is clumsy, with it cutting randomly between the snake and the soldiers. Once the mayhem begins, the editing becomes so rapid-fire that it's difficult to see what's happening, let alone be interested in the proceedings. Once the editing slows down the scene is over and the snake has somehow been captured but only after killing most of the soldiers.
Director L.A. McConnell (which apparently stands for Lee Alan McConnell) shows a distinct lack of anything resembling actual talent. Whether he is shooting an entire scene in slow-motion for no reason whatsoever or staging one of the far too many haphazardly constructed exposition scenes, he gives hope to all would-be directors that yes, it is possible to get work without having any discernible talent other than shooting a film on the cheap.
Of course, Jeff Rank's rank (pun intended) screenplay doesn't do anyone any favors. I suppose I would have found more plot holes (aside from how exactly the snake ends up in a Russian military base) if the plot were interesting enough to pay close attention to. It seems he takes short-cuts with it, assuming that the audience has seen many creature-features (since this premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel, the purveyor of countless creature-features, he may be right) and leaving said audience to fill in the blanks.
The acting is, as is par for the course with this sort of production, pretty darn bad. In the lead role and taking over for Casper Van Dien who at least had the intelligence to avoid this, William Zabka is too bored to even try to make his character entertaining. Dana Ashbrook and Simmone Mackinnon are also pathetic as a husband and wife who get caught up in the mess.
As for the giant snake action, the film disappoints here as well. The CGI technology hasn't improved since the first film and thus if you had the unfortunate experience of seeing that film you know what to expect: a choppy, D-grade effects creation that somehow gets smaller or larger depending on the scene. At certain points I swear the snake went through solid objects. That's polish for you.
"Python 2" deserves to fade off into cinematic hissstory.
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