The snake factory always has more, because it’s easy as always to slap some roman numerals over a snake image and call a movie a sequel to another movie about killer giant snakes, regardless of continuity.
Yeah, another un, tied to the 2000’s Python more by some cast members than anything else, and by that i actually mean William Zabka is here playing one of the lead characters, and it’s still produced by Python Productions and Unified Film Organization.
Clearly it made more sense to use the name “Python” once more, since New Alcatraz bombed very bad, not that it was great, but the fact they didn’t simply title it after the main killer snake probably didn’t help at all.
This one happens the be the only directing credit for Lee Alan McConnell, with many more as special effects artist and assistant, and of course the writer is different as well, Jeff Rank, with more credits as production manager but sporting only this movie and Deep Shock (2003) as a writer.
Not too encouraging, coupled with the fact they didn’t even bothered to slap this one on TV, direct-to-video, and at least in this part of Europe it’s hard to track down, so much i eventually had to relent and import a german DVD copy (with the english audio and fairly cheap, thankfully) for this one.
The plot is classic B-movie drivel, as in we have soldiers tasked to recover a bio-weapon, in this case a giant mutated python, and under an american-russian army joint operation, as the movie wants to make extra clear.
During trasportation, the carrier copter is shot down by Chechen rebels that mistake it for a russian vehicle, alerting a Russian army unit who retrieves the container holding the snake from the wreckage and moves it to a nearby base to study it.
Afterwards, the american Dwight, running a shipping business with his russian wife, and they’re hired by a mysterious benefactor to help them move a container from a nearby army base for a suspiciously generous sum…
The biggest surprise is that – despite it all – this actually is a sequel to Python, thanks to William Zabka’s character who basically explains he already experienced a similar thing when he was a police officer in a small american town.
Considering this happens via a bout of exposition 1 hour in, i was taken off guard by this spontaneous “attack” of continuity, given that’s supposed to all take place in Russia…. as in, Sofia, Bulgarians, with plenty of bulgarian actors posing as russians, sporting some hilarious non-russian accents, which makes as much sense as the russian wife of the lead being played by an australian.
And William Zabka’s posse of russian Matrix cosplayers ready to operate as your run-of-the-mill special ops unit, truly dangerous men. Not as dangerous as the deadly pitch of the american main characters, because he played baseball, you know, in case it wasn’t obvious how american he is.
Acting is middling, characters barely register as such, the plot is the same old shit, basically, and the execution doesn’t have many surprises, just your standard b-movie ensemble of mercs running around “space corridors”, ruins and warehouses, eventually being picked off by the giant monster animal of the day, until the script turns to the ol’ carpet bombing of the area. the classic “sponge move” for b-movie scripts.
The snake itself doesn’t look too bad, it’s about the same quality of CG seen in the first Python movie… aside some scenes with very crappy effects, but you kind of expect it.
The first one was better in every regard, and this one falls in the category of bad snake flicks that are entertaining all the way through, go by quickly, but lack anything memorable, so you will forget about it immediatly after you’re done watching.
It’s not good, but you can EASILY do far worse.
Wise Cafe (International) 