The
Tremors franchise review keeps rolling along. In this first sequel, we lose
Kevin Bacon but still have Fred Ward as Earl. Let us see how things in the
Graboid world have matriculated. Be warned that much like the movie I’m
assuming you have some familiarity with the original Tremors. If not check out
my review for it here.
Things
start off like any good Tremors movie should with someone trying to avoid
becoming a victim to the large underground worms and failing. We find out later
that this happens in a large oil field in Mexico. This prompts the company to
come looking for someone to take care of the it. Got Graboids? Who you going to
call? Val and Earl of course. But Val (Bacon’s character) bows out off-screen
which leaves just Earl and his new sidekick to take the job. The oil company is
paying well, and Earl needs the money.
The pair arrive,
and things go well. So well that Earl has to call in backup. There are a lot
more Graboids this time so of course the man for the job is everyone’s favorite
survivalist Burt Gummer, played again by the awesomely fun Michael Gross. Burt
being Burt he brings some serious hardware! I mean the Mexican army was giving
them whatever they wanted so he got a lot. Many subterranean terrors are
destroyed before things go sideways for the trio. The Graboids evolve and while
dying spawn out some two-legged monsters that run around hunting everyone with
their heat vision. Much like one of the characters says in the movie, “It’s a
whole new ballgame.”
I’m a
sucker for this franchise and love the Graboids and everything else that comes
from them. Since I mentioned the spawning the first thing that I wanted to
mention was how ingenious it was to switch the monsters up like they did. There
were a whole set of rules created in the first movie and while it starts off
that way in the sequel halfway thru everything changes. That allows for the
story to go a different direction and keep things from getting stale. It also
allows for some pretty funny bits of dialogue including survivalist Burt Gummer
saying, “I am completely out of ammo. That’s never happened to me before.” No
matter how many times I’ve seen this movie I still laugh at that line! Heck one
of the best parts about the original is how long it takes before we really see
the creature. Here we have a sequel that does the same thing by mixing it up.
I’d never seen that in a monster movie franchise before. The filmmakers aren’t
willing to stick to the status quo. This is one of the reasons I love the
Tremors Franchise and why I think it is still around. That and Burt Gummer of
course!
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| Uh Oh... Burt is completely out of ammo! |
Something
else the movie does well is get right to the story. It wastes very little time
rehashing the monsters and gets to the good stuff. I don’t know about you but
when I sit down for a monster movie I want blood, monsters, and maybe some
explosions. Tremors II hits all those buttons early and never lets up. And of
course, again we get a lot of guts flying around and landing on the characters.
This is a reoccurring theme in the franchise and I look forward to it.
Finally,
we need to talk about the creatures. We get a lot of practical effects work.
There are actual rubber monsters on set for the cast to interact with. I always
prefer that over CGI so seeing the practical work was great. That said Tremors
II is a product of ‘90s and didn’t have a huge budget so we also get some dated
computer generated stuff. Mostly when the bipedal critters show up they are
done in puppets for the tight shots. But when they run or move it is CGI and
honestly looks bad. I get why they did it that way, but it is distracting. I
get the feeling that the filmmakers knew it didn’t look great because it looks
like they minimized it as much as possible. That is really my only complaint
with this otherwise solid sequel.
I love
monster movies and I love the Tremors franchise. While not as good as the original
I still enjoy and recommend this first sequel. I’m excited that we still have
three more movies to go before we are done with it.
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
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