Such a frustrating disappointment

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Oh, dear, where do I begin? Okay, maybe I'll start at the start. And by that I mean the first Xtro movie - a mad, crazy, bizarre alien-busting British film from the eighties. One that has stood the tests of time simply due to its sheer weirdness. It found a cult following, so I guess that's why it spawned a sequel.However, Xtro 2 has nothing to do with the original and is merely attempting to cash in on the name. What it is, is an absolute Alien/Aliens rip-off. Here we go...Poor man's Colonial Marines with cigar-chomping Sergeant - check (not that this lot look like they're from the military, as they appear to have little to no military training). Chestburster alien - check. Air ducts - check. Alien itself - check. Map scene where the characters try to barricade up the complex - check. Ripley clone - check. 'Smart guns' - check. Female voice doing a countdown until destruction - check. And so on.Pity really, as it started with a decent enough premise - scientists in a top secret government lab are trying to send explorers through to another dimension. Trouble is, they bring back a particularly nasty alien who then runs amok.Not only is this film made by - seemingly - the only people alive who have seriously don't believe this has anything to do with Aliens, but the sets are cheap and the acting is terrible (if you look at the trivia for this movie you will find that even the director didn't like the leading man who didn't bother to learn his lines and had to have them all given to him prior to every shot). They even go for the classic horror movie cliché 'have sex and die.' Then it all turns pretty standard with the alien picking the humans off one by one (courteously ignoring major characters in favour of the lesser ones).Bottom line: if you like alien films, watch Alien or Aliens. The only thing Xtro 2 is good for is using as a drinking game where every time they copy Aliens, you have another drink. In fact... don't. No one's liver is capable of surviving that much alcohol.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

The original Xtro was a British sci-fi horror film from the early 80's. It was very silly indeed but pretty original and strange. I guess you could describe it as a minor cult movie. Its director, Harry Davenport, returned almost a decade later to make an American sequel called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Xtro II. This one is only vaguely related to the previous film at best. It's set in an underground military laboratory that is experimenting with travelling to other dimensions. They send a swat team to one such place, it's disastrous and one of the team returns only for an aggressive alien to burst out of her stomach and escape into the facility. The remaining personnel must avoid being torn apart by the monster.It should be clear from the synopsis that this flick owes a fair bit to Alien. But the truth is that this one isn't even nearly as good as the uneven original Xtro, far less Ridley Scott's master-work. Probably the single biggest problem is the location. Almost all films set in confined military bases are usually tedious and terrible. The limited sets are good for a low budget but very boring. This one is no exception with lots of dark corridors and very little variety. The movie stars Jan-Michael 'Airwolf' Vincent. He's not very good and puts in a thoroughly disinterested performance.Overall, very forgettable.

This is a sequel in title only to the memorably creepy and bizarre sci-fi horror opus "Xtro" of 1983. It may entertain adequately for die hard lovers of the genres, but is really quite routine, and full of inane characters. And as I'm sure has been said many times before, it does so much cloning of both "Alien" and "Aliens" as to be ridiculous. That said, it's not as if it's terribly made or terribly acted (for the most part). The story deals with a secret government facility (natch) buried deep beneath the Earth in the area of the Rocky Mountains. They've been experimenting with sending people to an alternate dimension, and predictably enough things go very, very wrong. One team member comes back impregnated with an evil monstrosity which inevitably bursts forth and goes on a rampage. A small strike force along with the assorted scientists on hand then have to figure out how to save their own worthless asses. Everything about this reeks of familiarity - the production design, the cinematography, the atmosphere, the music. Still, what is nice is seeing two players boosted to co-starring status - ass kicking action babe Tara Buckman (whom viewers may recognize from "The Cannonball Run" and/or "Silent Night, Deadly Night") and veteran bad guy actor Paul Koslo ("The Omega Man", "The Annihilators"). Buckman is easy to watch, and Koslo is a hoot as a one dimensional jerk sort of guy whom one can love to hate. Star Jan-Michael Vincent makes for a pretty dull hero. It's not surprising to read that he wasn't happy to be doing this film and that he made life difficult for director Harry Bromley Davenport, who'd also done the first "Xtro". 'X-Files' fans will note the presence of Nicholas Lea, playing tough guy Baines here, since he went on to some fame playing the villainous Krycek on that TV series. This is all certainly watchable enough, but again, one should be very partial to this sort of thing to begin with. It just doesn't have anything different to offer. The downbeat ending, however, is at least fairly amusing. Five out of 10.

Apparently it takes no less than FOUR different people to script a piece of junk that looks exactly like the "Alien", only a lot less claustrophobic and suspenseful. Four people and a bunch of washed up actors to make a US sequel that has absolutely nothing in common with the British cult classic from 1983, but presumably just wanted to cash in on the awesome title. The original "Xtro" is a movie you either love or hate. I happen to love it, because it was totally unique Sci-Fi fodder that blended surreal elements with kitschy comedy, gratuitous nudity and gruesome make-up effects. This sequel has … nothing! Even the additional title is boring. "The Second Encounter"? Well duh, it's the second movie after the first movie. "Xtro II" is basically just a re-telling of Ridley Scott's legendary "Alien", only set in an underground research facility instead of a spaceship. Deep underneath us, unaware tax-payers, Doctors Alex Summerfield and Julie Casserly run a secret laboratory where they teleport three people to an alternate dimension. Only one of them returns, however, and she's carrying a hideous monster that explodes through her chest "Alien"-style. The whole facility becomes hermetically sealed off and inescapable, and it's up to an ex-scientist (Jan-Michael Vincent) and a team of macho soldiers (like in James Cameron's sequel "Aliens") to survive this ordeal. This film is completely unoriginal, derivative, uninspired, boring and forgettable. It's literally everything you expect it to be, with exaggeratedly big guns and muscled imbeciles climbing up elevator shafts etc… It seems as if Jan-Michael Vincent and Paul Koslo, both reasonably acclaimed B-movie veterans, are competing for who can deliver the most uninterested and cocky performance, whereas the rest of the cast tries real hard to do good but don't have the talent. Tara Buckman, for example, must have watched and learned a lot from Linda Hamilton in "The Terminator". The special effects are weak, actually, even though this movie falsely raises the impression of being gory and trashy. The gory bits are always over in the blink of an eye, the lighting is poor and – if you watch it in slow motion – the make up looks quite amateurish.