Part 2 doesn't continue where part 1 left off. They just decided to make another EXTERMINATOR movie for no reason except to make money. The overall impression I get from this movie is that it was a rushed project. Judging by the quick pace with almost no build up of the drama I would have to say that they took a first draft script and rolled with it. The story is a mess cut together poorly and held together with bubble gum. Often I wonder as I am watching this movie if they completely rearranged the scenes during editing to get to the more actiony stuff. The story arch of the Exterminator doesn't make sense.
So John Eastland is back alone in his apartment listening to the police scanner. A liquor store is being robbed. Eastland puts on a blowtorch for some reason and goes out and fries the bad guys. Automatically the news reports that the Exterminator is back even though there is no way of knowing that. Nobody knew who he was originally and he didn't run around with a blowtorch and welding mask in the original. Apparently Eastland hasn't been out doing his vigilante thing for awhile. He just decided to start up again just because it would make for a great intro for our movie. THEN(!) he starts dating a dancer. Why would he do that if he has started killing bad guys again? Wouldn't that interfere with his sex life. Then he meets an old friend who drives a garbage truck who gives him a job as a garbage man. His old friend tried to stop a gang from robbing an armored truck earlier so now they think Eastland is the guy they are after. His friend asks him where he is going and Eastland responds "I don't know". That means that he is a drifter with no job. He is kind of like Bill Bixby from the HULK show. But that doesn't make sense. He just got a girlfriend and he has an apartment. He has some kind of roots. He is only wandering around because the script doesn't know what to do with his character or how to get the story rolling. This is where I start to wonder about the arrangement of scenes in this film. Maybe originally the opening to this movie is a bunch of scenes where Eastland decides to quit killing and start a real life but then like in DEATH WISH part 1,2,3,4,5 it all goes south. I guess the makers (who I assume were all a bunch of teenagers high on violent cinema) got bored and decided to skip all the story parts and just focus on the killing parts. Even those suck.
The bad guys in this movie are a gang of punks led by some jerk that calls himself X. What a dork. He is played by Mario Van Peebles which only compounds the dorkiness even more. I am not a fan. The gang basically shows up and ruins Eastland's life by murdering his girlfriend (after first paralyzing her. She was going to be a dancer. How tragic. Now excuse me while I go hang myself.) and then killing his old friend the garbage man when they break up the gangs drug deal. Then Eastland rigs the garbage truck with armor, rockets and machine guns and kills all the gang members in a rushed boring finale. Its anticlimactic as hell.
This movie suffers from HIGHLANDER-itis. HIGHLANDER considers Duncan Mcleod a badass by the cool sword he has. The Nerd-os love swords. EXTERMINATOR part 2 defines the badassness of Eastland by his blowtorch. Having a blowtorch looks cool so Eastland is cool. Whoever made EXTERMINATOR part 2 based the character on the cover of the first movie and not the actual character in the movie. The makers did not understand what made the original so good. Part 2 doesn't give motivation as to why Eastland decides to start his vigilante life again. The movie doesn't give a reason as to why Eastland has settled on using the impractical blowtorch. Why not use a gun. Its easier and doesn't weigh as much. Oh, I forgot it doesn't look as cool. Apparently Eastland is a G.I. Joe. This movie is just an excuse to show a few guys get lit on fire by a blowtorch. That's it. The action in this movie is so weak. Nothing is memorable. The villains get set on fire or get shot and blown up. None of it is extraordinary. And since the movie does such a piss poor job of setting up the story there is no emotional attachment to these characters to give a damn whether or not they live.
Talk about false advertising. THE EXTERMINATOR part 2 poster is the greatest poster ever made. Too bad this is one of the worst action vigilante movies ever made. It was made in the eighties so you are going to see alot of weird eighties dancing, weird eighties clothing, weird eighties break dancing, and roller skating gang members. How intimidating. I was kind of hoping that kid that was break dancing in the Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial but later broke his neck spinning on his neck was in this movie but he wasn't. I would at least give the movie one star. But then again I would have to take away that star for the embarrassingly bad and hard to watch sex scene featuring a Robert Ginty looking like it was his first time. I never want to see that again. Now if you will excuse me I need to go out and hang myself again. Don't worry, folks. I won't stay dead. I always return in the sequel.
Jason
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