Sequels are supposed to raise the stakes. Sometimes they succeed (Aliens, The Godfather Part II). Other times you get Pythons 2, a made-for-TV SyFy relic that manages to look like a parody of a parody of a nature-run-amok movie. If Python (2000) was already scraping the bottom of the reptile barrel, this follow-up drags that barrel to Russia, drops it in a swamp, and sets it on fire.
Cold War, Cold Cuts
The movie opens in Russia, because apparently nothing screams “snake science” like the Urals and vodka. American Colonel Jefferson Jr. (yes, Jr., as if we’re supposed to care about family legacy in a python movie) teams up with a band of Russian soldiers led by Sergeant Ivan Petrov. Their job? Capture an 80-foot genetically engineered python. Their strategy? Walk around with guns until one of them gets eaten. Shockingly, it works. They bag the beast and load it on a cargo plane bound for the U.S., because if history has taught us anything, it’s that moving dangerous monsters across continents is always a stellar plan.
Enter the Chechen rebels, who shoot the plane down. Why? Because the writers needed a reason for the snakes to escape and “Chechen rebels” was the first phrase they pulled from a Tom Clancy paperback. From there, the python wrecks a Russian base, eats soldiers like Pringles, and leaves Colonel Zubov as the only survivor. You’d think Zubov would call for backup, but instead he just sulks in the wreckage waiting for the next scene.
Shipping and Handling
Meanwhile, Dana Ashbrook (yes, Bobby from Twin Peaks, what a fall) plays Dwight, an American in Russia running a shipping company with his Russian wife Nalia (Simmone Jade Mackinnon, doing her best “long-suffering action wife” routine). They’re hired by Greg Larson (Billy Zabka, reprising his role from the first Python—because even Cobra Kai couldn’t save him in 2002) to move another giant snake-in-a-box. Spoiler: things go south when you open Pandora’s python.
The plot attempts to weave Dwight and Nalia’s “shipping business” into the action, but the logistics are about as believable as Amazon Prime delivering to Mordor. Zabka gets a fistfight scene, loses it, and then is immediately eaten by a snake that growls. Yes, the python growls like a bear with laryngitis. Imagine being killed by a reptile that sounds like it borrowed its roar from a Hanna-Barbera soundboard.
Special Effects, Special Ed.
The CGI here is, how do I put this politely… the kind of graphics you’d expect if someone tried to render a snake on a Nintendo 64 after three vodka shots. The python doesn’t slither so much as “glide” in a way that suggests the animators gave up halfway through and just dragged a jpeg across the screen. When the snake eats people, it looks less like predation and more like someone accidentally dropped them into a bad PowerPoint transition.
And the explosions? Imagine tossing a pack of Black Cats into a puddle. At one point, Dwight kills a python by tossing a brick of C4 into its mouth, which explodes in a ball of flames so underwhelming you half expect a Looney Tunes character to walk out covered in soot.
Acting: An Endangered Species
Dana Ashbrook looks perpetually confused, like he accidentally wandered off the Twin Peaks set and into this snake pit. Simmone Jade Mackinnon plays her role like she’s already mentally cashing the paycheck. Marcus Aurelius (yes, that’s the actor’s real name, not a Gladiator reference) delivers every line like he’s narrating a bad Cold War documentary. And Billy Zabka—oh Billy, bless him—leans into his villainous smarm until the python puts him out of his misery.
The Final Bite
The climax pits Dwight and Nalia against not one, but two oversized snakes. Larson is devoured in comical fashion, Dwight uses C4 as snake chow, and a convenient American bombing run does the rest. Our heroes survive, the Russians mop up, and the audience is left wondering if the true monster was the script all along.
Dark Humor Verdict
Pythons 2 feels like it was written by a committee of twelve-year-olds who just watched Anaconda on cable and thought, “Yeah, but what if there were two snakes… in Russia?” The dialogue is wooden, the CGI snakes would embarrass a 1995 screensaver, and the plot careens from Cold War intrigue to domestic shipping drama with all the grace of a python trying to tap dance.
It’s bad, sure—but not in the fun “grab a beer and laugh with friends” way. It’s bad in the “you’ll be checking your watch wondering how 92 minutes can feel like a prison sentence” way.
Final Scorecard
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Plot: A cold-war stew of clichés, reheated and served lukewarm.
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Acting: Imagine your high school drama class on sedatives.
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Special Effects: PS1 cutscene reject.
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Entertainment Value: Only if you enjoy yelling at your TV, “That’s not how snakes work!”
If you want to see giant snakes done badly, stick with Python or Boa vs. Python. At least those films knew they were trash. Pythons 2 takes itself just seriously enough to make you wonder if someone thought they were making Jurassic Park for reptiles. Instead, they made a movie so lifeless that even the snakes deserve better agents.
