Exterminator 2

Follow-up to the exploitation classic. This one is produced by the Cannon group, which should set off alarm bells given these are the guys who made their fair share of crap back in the 80's, including the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie. True to form Cannon have injected their brand of cheese into this one as well. The Exterminator (Robert Ginty) battles a gang led by Mario Van Peebles. Sporting an impressive flat-top and clobber that would not have looked out of place in The Warriors, Van Peebles chews up the scenery at every given opportunity; Ginty, on the other hand, acts like he is heavily sedated throughout. There is a lot more explosions in this sequel and Ginty drives around in a garbage truck rigged up like a tank. The stupid level has been ramped up at the expense of the scuzz factor basically and this is a more typical cheesy 80's actioner for the most part, while it sports an often truly terrible soundtrack. Still, I did find it enjoyable enough as these things go.

The First Exterminator film is a cult classic among fans of Revenge and exploitation flicks, however this film for a long time was not, until just recently, Exterminator 2 (1984) Is an interesting film because it didn't turn out like it should have, According to many fans and sources it was meant to be a follow up in the same gritty style of its predecessor, however the production company wasn't happy with the final product and demanded a entirely new ending involving a larger action scene as well as some other extra scenes to be added to the rest of the film, So apparently there's an entirely different work print version of the film out there, which would be an interesting watch because the version I am reviewing is the version that was Released in theaters and on VHS, we have yet to get a DVD and if we do I hope we get a special edition with both versions of the film and a documentary.

OK the plot of the film is extremely simple, It picks up 3 or 4 years after the original, and "The Exterminator" (Played by Robert Ginty Once again) is back cleaning up the crime ridden streets of new york, however the crime is even more ferocious than ever before, a new gang is on the Streets lead by a psychotic gang leader called "X" (Mario Van Peebles) His plan is basically to take over the entire city of New York by starting to get the public hooked on Drugs and have them join his gang to form an uprising on the entire city.

Now first thing You'll notice is the film's tone is completely different It's no longer dark and gritty and it has more in tone with the MAD MAX movies, THE EXTERMINATOR now wears a welding mask and burns crooks with a flamethrower, the film is still very violent (Depending on which version you get) But its more action oriented, however the problem is the action is not that good, every scene is mashed together and just barely makes sense, The Acting is probably the worst thing about the film, all the actors just seem bored and the punks are just over the top silly, and i don't blame them, the writing in this film is some of the worst ever, and the musical score is just laughable it sounds like it was composed for an old SEGA genesis/mega-drive game, even for its time it was bad, however it could've been good if they had better production values on the film, which is another major problem, the film's budget was extremely low and it dwarfs my mind on why that is, the first film was a financial success so you'd think they would give a bigger budget for the sequel, but this is produced by GOLAN GLOBUS after all so its expected, but even for them it was still low budget being made for only $3 million when they made other films for 5 to 10 million dollars.

Now after Ripping pretty hard on this film, I gotta give it some slack because in some strange and screwy way it was entertaining, Because When Watching it you can't help but think "You Know this could've been a Great Idea for a Comic Book" Indeed this film's tone is not far from the truth it has that comic book feel, even the Cover and poster art makes you think so, Not only that The main villain "X" Is hilariously entertaining to watch, he hams up the role just enough not to annoy you, And the final Action scene is cool, it involves an armored Garbage truck with guns,rockets and a snow plow attached to the front going through gang members, so this film Does have its entertainment value But Its more of an interesting curiosity to film buffs because of its history, so i suggest checking it out for Curiositys sake.

OVERALL: 5/10

BTW: Make sure you get the U.S version of this film, as its censored heavily in most parts of the world.

Exterminator 2 (1984)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

In 1980 the low-budget THE EXTERMINATOR hit theaters and become a rather big hit so four years later this sequel followed. Robert Ginty returns as John Eastland and this time out he's dealing with more bad guys including the leader of the pack who is known as X (Mario Van Peebles). This sequel certainly has production companies Cannon's signature all over it and in fact I think this film owes more to DEATH WISH II than the actual first film. I say that because the exploitation factor is a lot higher here for a number of reasons. I think director-producer Mark Buntzman probably saw that Charles Bronson hit and decided to do like that film and just deliver what people wanted. Part of what people wanted from the first film was the flame-thrower, which was pretty much shown on the poster of the first film but here it becomes a major character. Whereas in the first film it was only used once or twice, here it is the main killing force as we see countless people set on fire and burned to a crisp. This effect is put to great use throughout the picture and one has to tip their hat to the stunt men were were doing these dangerous stunts on a low-budget. The biggest problem with EXTERMINATOR 2 is that the pacing is so incredibly bad that the 90-minute running time feels three times as long. At one point I thought the film was almost over and my boredom turned to shock when I realized we were only thirty-minutes into the picture. There are a few good points along the way including the silly violence, which is certainly over-the-top at times and this is especially true of the garbage truck hunting. I thought Ginty was good in his wooden way. Van Peebles is certainly a lot of fun in his own way and you've got to love the various wild outfits he wears. Is this better than the first film? Considering I wasn't a fan of either, I'd say this one here manages to be a tad bit sillier and contain some campier, wilder moments that somewhat make it more entertaining. It's just too bad that the pacing wasn't better.

i've read some bad comments about this film on this site, mainly from people who i think took even the first film rather too seriously. this is a brilliant piece of absurd 80's action, dutifully modelled on the superb death wish series. the "street punks" are one of the best features and resemble the b*****d offspring of the warriors and mad max 2. the exterminator himself spends most of the film going berserk with a flamethrower and at one point he operates a rubbish truck armed with remote control machine guns. the action is interspersed with ridiculous love scenes involving a stripper. although i think this film does lack some of the quality of the original i found it just as enjoyable and anyone who can appreciate the death wish series should certainly enjoy this

Just like John Rambo this movie captures a vet pushed past his limit but this time in an urban massacre film. I saw this film as a teenager in the 80's. I always appreciated the straight forward good guy kills bad guy with minimal exposition way of the 80's.