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Sunday, January 25, 2015

Python 2

Watched January 12, 2015

2002
Starring: William Zabka, Dana Ashbrook, Simmone Jade McKibbon

Even though Anaconda (1997) was only a relative success it spawned several sequels and enough interest to inspire the made for TV movie Python (2000).  To further capitalize on interest in giant snakes, the direct to video Python 2 was made. I can't say I'm above any of it since I bought Python 2 at a thrift store. You never know if a giant snake movie might be a hilarious gem.

A team of military men including Russian and American soldiers join together to capture a giant snake for the reward of $500 million. They track it down to a giant cave, but it's such a massive beast that it kills several of the soldier before it's stunned. Somehow they manage to get it aboard their plane in a custom built snake box. While flying back to their base they are shot down by some Russian rebels. The snake escapes its holding box killing more of the soldiers before the plane crashes.

Greg Larson (William Zabka) is next in the chain of command to capture the snake. Greg subcontracts the shipping to Dwight (Dana Ashbrook) because he has shipping business and a large truck. Dwight is an American while his wife Nadia (Simmone Jade McKibbon) is a Russian who cannot leave the country. Dwight has some slight back story about being a professional baseball player but having some sort of meltdown or fight that forced him out. She also can't leave the country and the solution is a bunch of money that they'll get from this job. Greg only tells them that he has a large cargo that he needs to driven from Russia to a port where he can ship it out. Dwight and Nadia don't know that it's a giant snake. 

Greg has a team that tracks down the snake to a military bunker. Somehow they know that the snake survived the plane crash. At first Nadia and Dwight just wait by the the truck for the cargo to arrive. Dwight is suspicious of the the situation and it confirmed when one of the soldiers comes out almost dead, they head into the bunker to find out what has happened. The snake has been found but has killed several of the Greg's men. Greg is given orders to at least capture the DNA of the snake if it's too dangerous to capture it alive. Dwight, Nadia, Greg and the remaining soldiers get trapped in the underground bunker. A snake shoots venom out of his mouth and it blinds Nadia but she is the only one who can fit through the ducts to get back to the minivan for the C4 explosives. She crawls out the bunker and brings back the C4. Little does she realize that Greg has been given orders to kill everyone. Dwight and Nadia manage to fight off Greg and snakes and make it out of the bunker before it explodes killing Greg and the snakes. Oh yeah, there were two snakes this time.

The plot is very simple, but still somehow confusing and the action scenes don't add much to the enjoyment. I mostly found it boring which sounds crazy in a movie about a giant killer snake. The CGI is very poor so the snake doesn't look remotely real. There is a very strange credit sequence. We first see the opening titles, then the movie starts with the soldier going to the cave to find the snake. Once that is over another opening title sequence that includes clips of parts of the movie that we have yet to see. It seems like they had to pad the movie to get the run time they needed. It made me think it was a TV movie with some strange commercial break placement, but IMDB says it was straight to video.

The actual locations don't make a ton of sense, I'm not totally sure it takes place in Russia or somewhere else. It seems like the snakes are impossible to kill, they are shot multiple times with no damage.

The visuals of the movie were nothing to paint a picture about so I went with a break dancing snake to tie in my favorite sequel subtitle electric boogaloo. Unfortunately the snake didn't breakdance in Python 2.

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