Movie Review: 2 Lava 2 Lantula! (2016)

Synopsis: A year after Colton West and his team saved Los Angeles from lavalantulas, a new batch of them begin to hatch around Florida. West doesn't want to get involved this time but, when he learns his step daughter is trapped in Fort Lauderdale, chooses to rescue her. This time, the lavalantulas have different abilities and their queen is considerably larger than the one in Los Angeles.

Who's in it? The movie stars Steve Guttenberg, Michael Winslow, Michele Weaver, Jimmy Bellinger and RJ Walker.

Review: My wife and I were pleasantly surprised by the movie Lavalantula a couple weeks ago and made sure to add the sequel to our library. We finally had a chance to watch it yesterday evening and, while it wasn't anywhere near as good as the original, it still had its moments.

As I said before, the original was definitely better, primarily because this movie felt a little more predictable, even with the lava-spewing spiders possessing new abilities (such as being able to launch spikes from their backs). The first movie had some surprising deaths, for example, while this one had characters that were obviously going to be victims from the start.

That being said, the movie did wind up being entertaining and still funny. I personally loved some of the over-the-top characters that were introduced throughout the film, especially "Alligator" Dundee (Eric Etebari), that managed to add a little something extra every so often, even if they weren't on screen for that long.

I thought the final battle with the "gargantulantula" was also entertaining, especially how it carried so much heat, it had a natural line of defense against missiles and other weapons, making it a lot harder to defeat than the giant spider in the first film. This was the second movie I watched yesterday featuring a giant monster destroying a city and I can easily say this was the better of the two.

Final Opinion: If compared to the first movie, this is a bit of a disappointment. However, as a stand-alone monster movie/comedy, it isn't terrible. I probably wouldn't rank it among my favorites, but it is still worth taking the time to watch at least once.

My Grade: B