CAUTION: Plot spoilers present.
John Eastland has a job by day as a garbage collector, but by night he wanders the streets as the masked vigilante "The Exterminator", torching criminals with his flamethrower. A gang of thugs led by the bloodthirsty X swear revenge after Eastland's intervention in a robbery staged by his men. With their grand scheme to steal money from armoured cars & use the loot to buy drugs under threat, X attacks Eastland's girlfriend, crippling her. Eastland takes his garbage truck & turns it into an improvised tank with machine guns & rocket launchers fitted into it. With it, Eastland mounts an offensive on X & his gang.
I was never much of a fan of the notorious 1980 vigilante flick THE EXTERMINATOR – it was a mediocre thriller that tried to beat the likes of DEATH WISH but only found fame through controversy in several countries due to its violent content. That said, it was watchable enough for a cheap action film. Which brings us to this sequel. Made in the same year as James Cameron's classic killer cyborg actioner THE TERMINATOR (the similarity of title might have confused some people at the time), Exterminator 2 is mounted by Cannon Films, the same company that ironically staged the Death Wish sequels.
Exterminator 2 is nothing more than a cartoony action film that featured plenty of cut-price superheroics & no pretence at being serious – as the villain, Mario Van Peebles shouts & shoots his way around while Robert Ginty's hero comes outfitted with military-grade body armour, flamethrower & welder's mask as if he stepped out of a comic book. The climax, with Ginty taking on the goons with a makeshift tank, is ludicrous enough to make for unintentional hilarity & the plot is appropriately streamlined to allow as many action set pieces & muggings to take place in.
As a serious piece of action cinema, Exterminator 2 is nothing but nonsense. As a piece of 1980s' comic book action excess, it fares slightly better. The film is available in various cut & uncut versions around the world but the uncut version is not really that different from the censored version (as a strange sort of irony, here in Australia, the television broadcast version is uncut as opposed to the local VHS print – but close inspection between the two indicates that the difference is only marginal). The gore is non-existent unlike the original film's slightly better bloodletting & the net effect is of watching a piece of early-1980s junk.
John Eastland has a job by day as a garbage collector, but by night he wanders the streets as the masked vigilante "The Exterminator", torching criminals with his flamethrower. A gang of thugs led by the bloodthirsty X swear revenge after Eastland's intervention in a robbery staged by his men. With their grand scheme to steal money from armoured cars & use the loot to buy drugs under threat, X attacks Eastland's girlfriend, crippling her. Eastland takes his garbage truck & turns it into an improvised tank with machine guns & rocket launchers fitted into it. With it, Eastland mounts an offensive on X & his gang.
I was never much of a fan of the notorious 1980 vigilante flick THE EXTERMINATOR – it was a mediocre thriller that tried to beat the likes of DEATH WISH but only found fame through controversy in several countries due to its violent content. That said, it was watchable enough for a cheap action film. Which brings us to this sequel. Made in the same year as James Cameron's classic killer cyborg actioner THE TERMINATOR (the similarity of title might have confused some people at the time), Exterminator 2 is mounted by Cannon Films, the same company that ironically staged the Death Wish sequels.
Exterminator 2 is nothing more than a cartoony action film that featured plenty of cut-price superheroics & no pretence at being serious – as the villain, Mario Van Peebles shouts & shoots his way around while Robert Ginty's hero comes outfitted with military-grade body armour, flamethrower & welder's mask as if he stepped out of a comic book. The climax, with Ginty taking on the goons with a makeshift tank, is ludicrous enough to make for unintentional hilarity & the plot is appropriately streamlined to allow as many action set pieces & muggings to take place in.
As a serious piece of action cinema, Exterminator 2 is nothing but nonsense. As a piece of 1980s' comic book action excess, it fares slightly better. The film is available in various cut & uncut versions around the world but the uncut version is not really that different from the censored version (as a strange sort of irony, here in Australia, the television broadcast version is uncut as opposed to the local VHS print – but close inspection between the two indicates that the difference is only marginal). The gore is non-existent unlike the original film's slightly better bloodletting & the net effect is of watching a piece of early-1980s junk.