Alligator II: The Mutation

This serviceable follow-up to the original ALLIGATOR has absolutely nothing to do with that movie – other than featuring an alligator living in the sewers of a US city. I actually found this a fun, tongue-in-cheek little monster movie that works around the low budget to deliver a pacy, entertaining film with a strong script to recommend it. It's closer to PIRANHA than JAWS in tone, with the usual stock characters showing up: the rookie cop, the greedy property developer, the ignorant mayor and the dedicated law enforcer on the tail of the beast (literally in this case).

The worst thing about the film is the alligator itself. It's a combination of stock footage from the original film and an absolutely rubbishy pair of rubber jaws pushed at the intended victims. The poor FX and distant lack of bloodshed make the various attack sequences a real let-down, but that's okay because what happens when the alligator isn't on-screen is more interesting than it is.

The clichéd characters are brought to life by a wonderful ensemble cast of familiar faces. Joseph Bologna is well cast as the likable cop doing his best to catch the best; I also liked Woody Brown as the young, inexperienced, square-jawed hero. Dee Wallace Stone (THE HOWLING) finds herself wasted as the cop's wife with nothing to do, but the stunning Holly Gagnier has more fun playing the mayor's daughter. The scene chewing is left to a pair of dedicated B-movie veterans.

First up is Steve Railsback (TURKEY SHOOT), excellent as the utterly repulsive villain of the piece; second we have Richard Lynch playing one of those half-crazed redneck hunter types. Other familiar faces include Brock Peters as the black chief of police, Jason Voorhees himself, Kane Hodder, as an alligator hunter and Voyo Goric (a Russian villain in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2) as a henchman. This isn't a great film by any means, but I found it a more than entertaining effort considering the budget.

This is one of those, I guess, love it or hate type of sequels. I had seen this last summer.

The action in this film was fair but you can definitely tell the story for this was weak, Robert Forester was offered the sequel, but I remember him saying, the studio gave him the script to read but wanted him to decide within two hours, he wanted the original director to return and writer John Sayles. Long story short he did admit the script wasn't very good and turned it down.

I remember I had a buddy of mine see this downloaded and he and I enjoyed it, I felt the first was better but still liked it. I think my buddy liked it a bit more then the first, mainly because of the humor.

Like the first film, another mutant alligator runs amok and a detective and the coast guard have to team up to kill it before it destroys and eats the entire city.

I give it a 4/10. Not quite as good as the first I still feel it's watchable.

At the end of Alligator (1980) we see another gator flushed down the toilet and therefore a sequel is teased. 11yrs later the world got one and it's a bit of a mess.

Essentially the same movie, just with a weaker cast and somehow someway worse creature effects! Another oversized gator appears to lay waste to the city and it takes one renegade maverick cop to take it on.

This time it's been enhanced by chemical waste dumped into the sewers yet this doesn't seem to have changed the gator at all. If that is the excuse as to why it's so big then why does it appear smaller than the one in the first movie?

Poor creature feature and a miserable excuse for a sequel.

The Good:

Not so much

The Bad:

Creature effects, how 11yrs later can they be worse?

No consistency in gator size again

Terrible ending

1st watched 10/27/2000 - 4 out of 10 (Dir-Jon Hess): Rehash of 'Jaws' story not done near as well with of course an alligator instead of a shark. The performers try to keep it credible but it doesn't work. The alligator doesn't scare us and the story is too typical of this genre.

An alligator threatens the plans of a slimy condo developer in Alligator II: The Mutation.

The film begins with a murder via alligator before we are introduced to our main character David and his family. When he gets to the police station, he sees a report that two men didn't come home the night before and that a severed leg showed up on shore. When he brings it to the police chief and the mayors attention, they try to dismiss the claims of a potential alligator because of a new land development event happening in the area.

This event will apparently bring lots of money to the town. We meet the slimy condo developer Vincent Brown who is bringing a lot of money into the city and the area called Regent Park - right where the alligator has been attacking people. It will be up to David and an alligator hunter to stop the mutated beast from attacking the crowd at the development event in Regent Park.

I'm not sure why this sequel was made to be honest. Alligator II isn't a terrible film, but it's not needed after we saw it all before in the first film. This one suffers from an identity crisis as well. It's a killer alligator movie but also tries to be a comedy at times. Plus we get the side storyline of the building development scheme and how they are in control of the mayor and the police chief. We get less alligator and more of that plot for the most part. And the times we do see the beast, it's stock footage from the 1980 film. Pretty disappointing.

Joseph Bologna isn't the first person I'd choose to lead in a movie like this, but he does a fine job. It's always good to see Dee Wallace who plays David's wife. Legendary Brock Peters was fun to watch as Chief Speed. Woody Brown and Holly Gagnier are cute as the young couple who are finding love during this mayhem. The positives of Alligator II are the actors and the characters

Overall, Alligator II is an unnecessary sequel to a pretty good film from 1980. It has some fun moments, good performances by the actors, and a good finale, but finishes as a below average horror film.

4/10