Zoombies 2

Why would the police not come to help them, when there are armed poachers? The black guy was just over the top silly and whiny. I hope they don't make a part 3.

Well, the 2016 "Zoombies" was hardly a masterpiece in any sense, and fairly much came and went without as much as a groan or taking a bite of the zombie genre. So it was no surprise that the 2019 "Zoombies 2" pretty much did the same.

I stumbled upon this The Asylum production by sheer random luck. I have seen the previous movie, so of course I would also see this sequel. However, I can't really claim to sit down to watch it with much of any hope or expectations to it.

Turns out that it was as one would assume a zombie sequel would fare. Yeah, it was worse than the predecessor, and that leaves little to be said actually.

The storyline in "Zoombies 2" was straight forward, for sure. But it was essentially a pointless and incredibly mundane and generic storyline, one that has already been seen before many, many, many times over in other zombie movies. So don't get your hopes up for anything grand here.

The acting in the movie was adequate, if you take into consideration the type of movie it was, and the fact that The Asylum was behind this movie. However, I can't claim to be able to put my finger on any single performance that stood out amidst the others. So it was fairly bland and non-distinct.

For a zombie movie, then "Zoombies 2" was incredibly bland and actually downright boring. The zombified animals were horrible to look at, and it was painstakingly clear that it was just poorly animated CGI that looked like something you'd find in a 1990s computer game.

I gave up just about 20 minutes short of reaching the end of the movie. I was ready to have one of those atrociously fake and horribly animated zombie animals come and claw my eyes out. The movie was just not worth the effort.

Given Asylums reputation for creating average, at best, films for a quick buck, I wasn't expecting anything special from a Zoombies sequel. I was right, because surprisingly enough this turned out to even worse than the first film.

This is apparently meant to be a prequel explaining the origins of the Zoombies, even though it's a lazy recycling of the first films plot. A group of poachers break into an animal refuge to steal some animals, using a strange green fluid as a tranquilizer. But little do they know, the "tranquilizer" turns animals into vicious, undead, flesh-eating monsters. Now, a team of sanctuary workers and a few poachers must band together in order to survive.

The excessive CGI animal effects look as hilariously cheap as ever. There were even two stampede scenes where the crew obviously copied and pasted the same animal models over and over. Other "special" effects were just as ridiculous, like JD (Jumarcus Mason) being launched into the air by a hippo, he's obviously in a sitting position placed over a green screen. Next, we see him being devoured by the hippo a horribly rendered CG scene that looked like it came from an early PS1 game. It looked so bad; it made my eyes burn.

As expected, the acting is terrible, and the dialogue is mediocre at best. They even rip-off a line from Aliens: "Vedder, we are leaving!". This happened to be Erica Sturdefants and Jumarcus Masons most prominent roles. Most of the characters are flat and forgettable, hardly differing from one another, and only appear in a few scenes before becoming Zoombie food. The only marginally notable character is Jezel (Terra Strong). I honestly didn't care for any of them because all their performances are so stale and unconvincing, even during action scenes.

The action and horror aspects of this film were almost completely ineffective. Seriously, who would ever be afraid of killer meerkats, aardvarks, and porcupines? Just like in the first movie, all the effects are so awful, they won'tscare anyone. The death scenes are laughably lazy; twice we see victims just lay on their backs and don't even try to fight back as the Zoombies sit on their chests and dismember them.

Like the majority of "The Asylum's" work, this was an awful and barely watchable movie.

Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of The Asylum's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, The Asylum do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.

Did not care at all for the first 'Zoombies' film, but it wasn't a complete waste of time. There is far worse around. Sequels are notorious for being rarely being on the same level and seldom better (with exceptions of course), and 'Zoombies 2' is definitely the inferior film. Though it is a case of the original not being a good film to begin with, so not much was expected when seeing it out of curiosity and being intrigued somewhat by the concept.

The least bad asset of 'Zoombies 2' is the scenery which did have a little atmosphere that was lacking everywhere else, and sadly it was wasted by the rest of the production values being so bad.

All the acting is sub-par at best and dreadful at worst, the first 'Zoombies' had two decent performances whereas this has none. They do have to work with bland and irritating characters, with the film making little effort to do anything with them let alone develop them, and dialogue that is both insipid and cheesy with a constantly awkward flow. As well as the doesn't-even-reach-workmanlike, actually pretty pedestrian, direction, that fails to give any urgency or tension.

Both are severely lacking in the story. So is the suspense, fun and thrills. Really liked the concept and it is sad that they had something that seemed different and clever on paper, but was executed so predictably and by the numbers. The action is unexciting, random and confused, with some haphazard editing, while the scares, fun and suspense are not there in any shape or form and the film is instead predictable, dull and overboard dumb.

Unfortunately, the titular characters fare no better. They exude very little menace, fun or coolness. They didn't to me have much personality and were used pretty poorly. Best not mentioning the deplorable look of them, the visual asset that comes off the worst in a film where only the scenery is acceptable.

Overall, terrible. 1/10

Really bad writing and acting, thought i would kill 90mins and watch this, killed about 30mins and switched it off, really really dire movie. Ok i watched only 30mins but, i was surprised i got that far into it.