Alligator 2: The Mutation (1990)

'I understand that you're professionals,' the hero tells experts as the mutant-on-a-rampage crisis escalates, 'but this is not a professional alligator.' This made-for-video picture from Jon Hess, director of Watchers, is less a sequel to Lewis Teague's well-regarded Alligator than a lacklustre remake, never referring to the events of the original as it shuffles through exactly the same story. Though adequately cast, with Joe Bologna an acceptable substitute for Robert Forster as the befuddled cop on the case and Dee Wallace Stone fine as his helpful scientist wife, this suffers from a script which conforms exactly to the cliché plot of Alligator while failing to match John Sayles's witty dialogue and offbeat characterisation. Steve Railsback handles villainy as the property-developing toxic waste dumper responsible for the mutation in the first place, while Richard Lynch takes the man-of-the-match award in the old Henry Silva role as a Cajun gator hunter who confronts the immobile rubber monster in the sewers.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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