Spiders II: Breeding Ground

During the opening sequence a guy drops a dead body in to a cage containing a giant spider. Straight after that we cut to a yacht full of teenagers in the middle of the ocean(!) as they play cards they are hi-jacked by guys in black with guns and all the girls are taken prisoner, the guys with guns then blow the yacht up with a grenade burning all the men left inside. Cut to next day and our two main characters Jason and Alexander find this yacht and stop to have a look and decide they will report it and theres nothing else they can do. Unfortunately for us and them they get caught out by a big storm and end up overboard. Luckily for them a large cargo ship turns up and saves them. But this cargo ship is not what it seems. I dont think I need to tell you the rest as you should be able to guess quite easily. I hate this film and you will too. I cant think of one good thing to say about it. The story is very slow to get going, the actors are annoying, and as for the effects they are some of the worst I have ever seen including awful computer effects, rubbish spider puppets and the film makers even have the nerve to put a normal sized spider on a model/toy boat to try to convince you that a huge spider is crawling over this cargo ship. It is never explained how the spiders grow to such large proportions or the reason why there is a cargo ship full of the things. I would have thought the director and screenwriter might have at least tried to come up with some sort of explanation, but no they couldnt be bothered. I think this movies script was written on the back of a postage stamp. Dont say I didnt Warn you. See the much better original spiders instead.

Most of the people who've seen and slated Spiders 2 have obviously never seen Spiders 1, as the sequel is practically Citizen Kane in comparison. Most of the actors do a passable job (including Richard Moll - an actor I actually recognised, the last thing you expect from a film like this), and the director even throws in some halfhearted camera tricks - brilliantly stupid shots include the heroine diving through a bit of flimsy webbing in slo-mo as if it were a plate glass window.

However, any and all attempts to build up suspense totally disintegrate when the SFX are brought into play (some of the CG shots near the end are laugh-out-loud hilarious), and, unforgivably, it also suffers from Boring Spider Deaths. It also has absolutely no connection to the original, though I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing.

Still impossible to recommend as a good film, then, but it's definitely a cut above the original (if not quite as funny).

There's a movie channel in LA called 'B' Mania. You can see some of the worst 'fun' movies on it. They wouldn't dare show this one. I expected Richard Moll to lapse in his 'Bull' character at any moment. The CGI is bad, the acting is bad, the movie is bad. Period.

let's see now... Spiders 2... ummm.... the special effects are just silly..... the dialogue is wooden, weird, and hard to take seriously... the mad scientist acts and talks and looks like a Saturday morning cartoon character... the story has lots of plot and logic loopholes, verging on the ridiculous....

the story is predictable and is very very very slow moving -- we can all see where it's going, so why can't the characters?

actually you could save this movie by taking out virtually all of the dialogue -- not a word of it is necessary --- then taking out redundant and unnecessary scenes -- and bringing in a better cinematographer with more knowledge about dramatic lighting. It would work okay as a silent movie, about ten or fifteen minutes long.

The biggest problem with this movie is its simplistic dialogue. One example is when the made scientist gloats "Spiders are carnivores. Did you know that?" It makes one wonder if the writers added that for the 3-year-olds who may be watching. It also lacks creativity and fails to create any suspense or scares. The actors also fail to generate any sense of urgency. Lines such as, "This is creepy" are spoken in the same tone you might use to say "We need milk." If the characters on screen are not afraid of their situation, why should the audience be scared? The spiders themselves never seem very real. There is no sense of scale or consistency. (One spider chasing the heroine seems to change size constantly--almost as if the animator couldn't get it quite right) They have a trumpeting roar that sounds suspiciously like an elephant and which detracts from any realism they may have had. (When was the last time you heard a spider say anything?) If you can see it for free, give it a try. But don't waste your money on this film.