Python 2

There's a certain paint-by-numbers formula that these creature movies follow: the creature is always created by the military, which never makes any sense but we can live with it if the movie's good. The movie always seems to end up in a dark basement full of pipes. The good guys shoot the creature numerous times, but considering it's obviously added via CGI in post-production, shooting it never seems to have any effect. And then there's the half day of work they pay the pyrotechnics crew for, which is the last scene where the monster is destroyed. This movie follows the same formula, but overlays it with the Sci-Fi channel formula of having the characters behave obnoxiously and fight amongst themselves for reasons of, well, apparently they saw people doing that in a real movie once.

In this flick, a giant snake is loose in a really small Russian military base. A team of commandos goes in to get it, but they need a truck to haul it back with. Yeah, you know, all that training, all those weapons, all that organization, and a 100 thousand dollars to throw around, but no truck. So they do something that this audience member really regrets: they hire an American truck driver to accompany them.

So they get to the base and find that the 85 foot, 12 ton snake has escaped its refrigerator sized box, and since it's now obvious that they won't simply be hauling it back on a truck, they tell the truck driver to go away. Oh, if only he had. They even paid him the whole 100 grand, for doing nothing, and yet he still sticks around. What follows is the snake attacking these folks numerous times, and the truck driver whining and complaining about being put in danger. Didn't they give him 100 thousand and tell him to go away? He even punches the guy for getting him into the whole mess, but wait... he tried NOT to get him into this mess. Then he demands to know "the whole story". Oh please, please go away!

That's what really ruins this thing, the typical Sci-Fi Channel obnoxious lead character. Leave him out and it would have been quite watchable.

The original PYTHON is kind of all over the place in terms of its tone, the consistency of its special effects, acting, directing, production design, you name it. PYTHON II, however, is a much more consistent film throughout, and tells a story that is a structurally more simple and better suited for this type of film.

PYTHON is set in small town USA, but the sequel takes place somewhere in Russia with a backdrop of political tension with Chechnya. The bright colors of the first film give way to a more subdued pallet here, and the tone is more straight and narrow than some of the all out sillyness that has preceded it. PYTHON II is a more focused film though.

The focus here is more on the relationship between Dana Ashbrook and Billy Zabka's characters. Zabka, by the way, plays a much more intriguing version of Greg Larson in PYTHON II than he does in PYTHON. Zabka is allowed to spread his wings a bit more in this film. He's a more significant character and occupies a position of agency, whereas in the first film he mostly just reacts to things in the vein of a detective story. Ashbrook's Dwight Stoddart is a former MLB player with a rough past following him, and the lack of trust between him and Larson keeps a good deal of tension fueling the plot even when the snake is not present (hint: it is not present very often in this movie).

The shortcomings are obvious. To my knowledge they shot this one in about two weeks. The special effects, even for 2002, are lacking. Whereas the structure of the film's plot is not very ambitious, the scope of some of the special effects is. Squads of elite military soldiers attacking giant snakes in massive caves, stealth bombers conducting a bombing raid on a military base. These parts of the movie do not look that great because they're biting off more than they can chew. I like that the plot doesn't reach for much: the characters are after some secret cargo which they plan to transport. Larson hires Stoddart to transport it. Great. But some of the other stuff needs to fall into place with the scope of the film's budget, and trying to stretch out what the budget was capable of providing shows in ways that are not ideal. It's probably worth saying that the snake does not look better than it did in the first film.

PYTHON II is not a good movie per se, but if it's a bad movie it's far from being bad in an unbearable or offensive way. It's not perfect. It's kind of awkward at times, and not as 'fun' as PYTHON, but I recommend it to b-movie fans, especially if you enjoyed the first film, as PYTHON II puts in some admirable effort to make a connection with its predecessor.

Python (2000)

BOMB (out of 4)

Robert England plays a mad scientist who created a huge python that spits acid. I'm terrified of snakes, which means I usually have a good time being scared with snake movies but this one here was downright awful and ranks as one of the worst films I've seen the past twenty years. The acting is atrocious, the screenplay laughable and the special effects are terrible looking.

Python 2 (2002)

BOMB (out of 4)

The American government brings home an eight-five foot snake, which eventually escapes and starts eating people. This is another horrid, direct to video horror movie but it's slightly better than the first film since this one here runs ten minutes shorter. Is that any kind of recommendation?

Fugitive ex-baseball star and his Russian bride find themselves the unwitting pawns in a CIA-led mission to recover a giant, highly agile python that has been unintentionally released from its cargo hold by Chetynan rebels, and is now on the prowl at a Soviet military base.

Generally, the acting is either very pedestrian, or totally over the top, with stereotypical characterisations of mobsters, mercenaries and military types, all of whom attempt to exude too much sentiment for the depth of their characters. The film largely takes place on a military base, in which, a supposedly crack team of commandos hunts down and attempts to capture the giant reptile, with catastrophic results for most concerned. It's formula 'catch and kill' stuff, and plays out like a video game. Only Zabka's mildly tongue-in-cheek performance offers any hint of talent, his presence the fragile pedigree to "Python", although despite, ostensibly, playing the same character, the persona are vastly different. Mackinnon's accent is painfully erratic, with an obvious Australian drawl surfacing in moments of despair, while perennial Russian-mafia typecast Binev, is becoming something of a staple in these types of movies, making a virtual 'guest' appearance as a Russian-esque mobster.

The title reptile is even less convincing than in "Python", the CGI effects so blurry and poorly scaled, that the occasional interaction with a cast member is laughably absurd. Corny sets and cheap-looking outdoor staging is soon surpassed as the film takes up permanent residence on a fictitious military base, thus descending into a cat and mouse game with the snake, while stealth fighters prepare to raze the facility, to silence all witnesses. In spite of the competing threats, there's little, if any suspense, and a poorly executed climax that looks anything but the feared demolition that was to have taken place, to 'neutralise the situation', or 'go black' in the apparent CIA-speak oft employed throughout the picture by Zabka.

Overall, if you like big snake movies, then you may be moderately satisfied with this basic offering; on the other hand, if you're more discerning, say, "Anaconda" rather than "Python", then you're unlikely to find it here.

I was puzzled by the credits being mostly Russian names. Then I realized this was a movie set in Russia that actually WAS shot in Russia!

So I say, cut it some slack. A stray thought-- the actors playing soldiers in the film probably WERE former members of the Red Army! They certainly had the moves. And the CGI serpents are pretty dang good! I was impressed by a couple of sequences. In one, the snake's underside reflects the light of the flamethrower being used (ineffectually) against it. The other nicely-done sequence is lifted from Gandalf's "death" in LotR: TFotR, with a serpent playing the Balrog role.