Search - Xtro 2 on DVD

In-depth actor performance

04/24/1999

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I first saw Xtro 2:The Second Encounter when looking for my favorite actor(Nicholas Lea who plays Baines).My first impression was Aliens ripoff, but as I watched it for the first time I saw a storyline which was different from aliens and had potential but sadly was neglected by second rate director Harry Bromley Davenport. Jan-Micheal Vincent gives a decent performence as also does Nicholas Lea but that is about all it has going for it."

Utter crap, but i like that.

joe | New Zealand | 02/23/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"normally id give a film that i enjoyed so much a high star rating, but in this case i must expose it for the crime it is to movie lovers.firstly, im a b-movie fan and this one rocked my socks off; shoddy acting, pitiful and repetitive sets, embarrasing dialogue and a 'script' to match. i found the movie a pleasant and fun rollercoaster of action- but thats in my opinion, in anyone elses i can imagine the cruel taste of $2 down the drain to be quite bitter.bottom line, avoid unless you have a thing for terrible (and easily mockable) films. sadly id have to say this is one of my favorites.if you DO stumble upon this film keep an eye out on the 'jedburg' actor, that guys going places ;)"

Rated one star as no zero star available

Dick Mann | Johnson County, KS, USA | 02/16/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I was tricked into watching this movie. I had not seen the original Xtro. I was not familiar with the dircector. I read only the skimpy SCI-FI description of the movie in the yahoo tv online schedule which read, in total: "The sole survivor of a parallel-world trip joins the woman in charge of another one gone wrong." Endquote! I am a fan of alternate world stories, having had one published. In view of all of the above, I sat down before my 32" tv, put the taped movie into the vcr, and prepared to watch a decent action movie -- I thought. I saw Jan-Michael Vincent in a couple of other movies since his character in "airwolf" and I think he should have quit after the series ended. I found myself fast-forwarding much of the movie wanting to get it over with. I only wanted to see how it came out not what happened to make it come out. Not recommended for anyone. Review based on the vcr recording from the SCI-FI channel January 31, 2005."

Mommy, please make the hurting stop...

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 12/29/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"XTRO 2: The Second Encounter (Harry Bromley Davenport, 1990)

There are few things on a video box that telegraph "this is a horrible movie" better than the combination of a copyright date after 1980 and the name Jan-Michael Vincent. I had hopes for this, being a sequel to one of the eighties' most brilliant and underrated horror films, but I should have known to trust the signs.

Harry Bromley Davenport helmed this sequel to his own XTRO (1984), teaming up once again with scriptwriter Robert Smith, who did such a fantastic job on the original. The similarity between the two films, however, ends there. Three more writers were brought in, two first-timers and a second-timer, and if Smith created a script even a tenth as good as the one for the previous XTRO, it was obliterated in rewrite.

The first part of the tagline says it all: "Part alien. Part predator." And rather than the grisly, atmospheric pissed-off-E.T. Of the first film, we get a substandard-action-flick pissed-off Alien. But someone forgot to tell the writers that the alien in Alien was already pissed off, and that Alien was a good horror flick, not a treacly, syrupy sweet family film that begged for an extreme gore treatment.

Do I even need to review the plot, what there is of it? The heads of a secret government project, NEXUS, are Dr. Alex Summerfield (Paul Koslo, whose career bottomed out in Heaven's Gate) and Dr. Julie Casserly (Tara Buckman, one of Cannoball Run's "Lamborghini Babes"), are trying to create a portal to another dimension. They get three people through, of whom only one returns alive-- a woman. You know what's coming next, though the new film jettisons the infamous birth scene of XTRO and replaces it with an Alien-like chest burster, adding a few other tricks that had no place in the original film. The creature then pursues everyone left in the facility, including Dr. Ron Shepherd (the infamous Mr. Vincent), head of a previous NEXUS installation who'd destroyed the facility rather than let one of these beasts loose upon the world. Trapped with them are The Sidekick and The Army Men, useless two-dimensional shells of characters who exist to die, and The Beautiful Doctor Who's Attracted to a Character, ditto. (Both The Beautiful Doctor etc., played by Rachel Hayward, and one of the Army Men, played by a young Nicholas Lea-- not coincidentally, the only two in the film who have a shred of acting ability-- later turned up in Chris Carter TV series-- Harsh Realm and The X-Files, respectively.) So you have an alien and some human lunch. You know what's going to happen for the rest of the movie.

XTRO 2 is an insult. Why Davenport had anything to do with it is beyond me; both he and Smith should have disowned the film before its release. Horror film fans, especially those who have discovered the brilliance of the original film, should be cautioned to stay far, far away from this dog. (zero)"