TREMORS 2: AFTERSHOCKS
A worthy sequel, mostly
I hadn't really expected a sequel to the original, and was rather surprised that one actually got made. Tremors accumulated some critical respect and some overjoyed fans such as myself, but it didn't exactly set the box office on fire. But around the time Tremors was released, just getting a theatrical release at all for this kind of movie was no small feat, and like a number of other not-exactly-big- hits from the time, a sequel was never entirely out of the question.
All things considered, it's a pretty good sequel, too. Writers Brent Maddock and S. S. Wilson knew when to stop treading too long on the turf of the original film, and wisely took things in a different direction here. The new direction may not be as compelling, but it's done with a lot of heart and a sense of fun.
Fred Ward returns as the desert-dwelling hick Earl. Kevin Bacon obviously isn't here, having moved on to more lucrative pastures, both within and outside the narrative. Earl's been stewing in his own juices over not successfully cashing in on the whole "graboid" craze that came in the wake of the events of the first film (he even owns a "Graboids" arcade game). So he jumps at the chance when a Mexican oil tycoon (!) offers him fifty thousand for each of the human-munching sandworms he can kill. (whether it's fifty thousand dollars or pesos is never once mentioned; I kept expecting it to be the big "so much for our fortune" gag at the end. Fortunately, a different way to get to that gag is employed.) Problem is, after a number of kills, the worms decide to try a different tack - turning into different animals entirely!
This new monster design - basically, Pac-Man with legs, and they reproduce like Mogwais - makes them surface-dwellers by necessity, and thus not as cool as the original worms. Still, that's not really all that bad a thing - the minor amount of worm action at the beginning of the film looks cheap and cheesy, and it's for the best that we didn't really have to see more of it. The new creatures form their own unique threats, and their own capabilities (including some fairly clever problem-solving skills) are handled quite well. The creatures are also well-done, in both animatronic and CGI form; certainly better than a direct-to-video release would have us expect. The CGI is considerably well-done, and is sparingly, intelligently used.
Michael Gross also returns as gun nut Burt, minus Reba McEntyre who probably thought it would look bad to star in a straight-to-video release. Helen Shaver and Christopher Gartin are also along for the ride, the former mostly serving as Earl's minimal love interest, and the latter trying to bring an enthusiastic "new kid in town" freshness to what basically amounts to a riff on Bacon's character, succeeding about half of the time.
This movie tries to mostly duplicate the tone of the original, and mostly succeeds admirably. There's slime and monster guts all over the place, but the actual violence against humans is minimal. There's a goofy, sort of hicksy tone to it all, the writers mostly keeping things amusing, although very rarely as funny as the original (my favorite moment had to be our first sight of the new creatures). They went on to pen what's quickly on its way to becoming 1999's most hated would-be blockbuster, Wild Wild West. Nothing they've done so far suggests to me that they're capable of writing an engaging mega-budget summer movie; they're better off sticking to smaller genre projects, unless they want to join Akiva Goldsman in the rifle crosshairs of demented fanboys everywhere.
For its modest aspirations, Tremors 2 delivers surprisingly well. My only real complaints about it are that an explanation is given for as to just where the worms came from, and it strikes me as no small amount of bullshit; especially considering how the Finn Carter character specifically addressed how unlikely that was in the first film. (no reason is given as to why we've just never noticed them until now, or why something this big and carnivorous would exist back when it was "the oldest lifeform on the planet, other than one-celled things") Also, it takes about an hour of the film's 100-minute running length for these new creatures to show up; at least twenty minutes could have been shaved off of that.
Better than most might have expected, and it seems to have come as close to getting a theatrical release as any straight-to-video movie could hope to. Two-fist it with the original; it may pale in comparison, but you'll appreciate how good it is considering how much of a half-assed ripoff it could have been.