Terminator II

This movie is not actually a sequel to the 1984 James Cameron movie, but more or less a remake of Cameron's 1986 movie ALIENS. The major difference between this movie and Aliens is... well, almost nothing actually.

The plot, lines of dialog, situations, etc. are all completely identical to those seen in ALIENS, such as the mischievous android who more or less plays the "Burke" role up until he gets damaged a bit, then he goes on a TERMINATOR-style rampage chasing after the woman and the young girl.

The actual Aliens here are more like genetic mutations, and they don't really look that bad considering they're just guys in monster suits. Whatever they have to do with the plot is negligible since the movie seems to be more of a post-nuke film having to do with soldiers unlocking some government conspiracy deep in the bowels of a futuristic ruined Venice.

The cast is uniformly awful, with several Americans (some with South African accents) in the cast who appear to have little or no prior acting experience, sort of the same situation with TROLL 2 or CRUEL JAWS where I think the production company just wheeled through K-mart asking people if they wanted to act in a film. Only Fausto Lombardi comes across as anything resembling good, though Chris Ahrens and Janna Ryan are pretty amusing bad movie veterans.

The musical score for this picture I believe was liberated from a number of other 80's films, including Blade Runner and Miami Cops. Much of the footage (with the explosions, etc.) is taken from Mattei's earlier DOUBLE TARGET too.

So bad is this film, in fact, that writer/co-director Claudio Fragasso refused to make any more movies with Mattei afterward - and that's saying a lot. I have to say that I enjoyed it to a certain extent, though it's more fun to wonder how they managed to avoid a lawsuit than it is to actually sit down and watch the movie in one sitting. A little too depressing and dull to be unintentionally funny - though it does certainly have its moments.