TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION - 2001
Universal Pictures
Ratings: Australia: M / Finland: K-16 / Germany: 16 / Sweden: 15
/ U.K. 15 / USA: PG-13 |
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I’ve said it before: TREMORS was just about the best
monster movie ever made. TREMORS 2: Aftershocks was not even in the same ballpark but it was fun to visit with the characters
again. Will this visit be as much fun?
TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION was directed by Brent Maddock (a
producer on TREMORS and TREMORS 2; this is his first time directing) and written by Mr. Maddock
along with S.S. Wilson (TREMORS, TREMORS 2, GHOST DAD), Nancy Roberts (another TREMORS 2 producer) and John Whelpley. The story opens late at night near El Chaco, Argentina, where a news crew has just arrived on a lonely
hilltop. Burt Gummer (Michael Gross: TREMORS,
TREMORS 2), the survivalist character from the first movie, soon
shows up in his characteristic big truck. Burt makes a living now hunting
graboids (the underground worm monsters)
and shriekers (the above ground next stage in the
graboid life-cycle).
As Burt speaks to these reporters in his pidgin Spanish the characteristic sound of a
large group of shriekers comes from the next hill. These creatures home
in on body heat and have clearly spotted the news crew. As the shriekers
charge the reporters panic and jump in their vehicles. Burt confidently
steps into the back of his truck and uncovers a dual .50 caliber anti-aircraft
gun (a real big machine gun) and blasts away,
making short work of the advancing monsters.
Cut to the town of Perfection, Nevada (the site of the first
movie). It’s 11 years since the graboids first appeared in this
tiny desert town and the terror of those days is long forgotten. Instead
the townsfolk make a living from tourists eager to see anything graboid
related. Young Jodi Chang (Susan Chuang: BRACEFACE BRANDI), the niece of Walter Chang (a character
killed in the first movie) runs her uncle’s general store now.
She sells graboid puppets and shreiker comic books. A new resident known
as Desert Jack (Shawn Christian: C.S.I [TV])
leads unsuspecting tourists on safaris to known graboid sites where Jack’s
dim witted assistant, hidden behind some bushes, creates spouts of dirt
as though one of the underground monsters is approaching. Other characters
from the first movie reappearing here include Miguel (Tony
Genaro: THE CRAFT), Nancy (Charlotte Stewart: TREMORS, Twin Peaks [TV]) and Nancy’s pogo-stick loving daughter
Mindy (Ariana Richards: JURASSIC
PARK, JURASSIC
PARK II).
Burt returns to Perfection, a bit put off by the way no one takes graboids seriously
anymore, and I think we can all see where that is going. The big worms
show up again (from nowhere, for no apparent reason,
just like the first time). But this time they make it through a
complete life-cycle and I won’t tell you what the third stage is but they
call it an Ass Blaster. Ass Blasters? I think I better insert a
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
Without giving too much away, I just want to point out that the Ass Blasters
do have (sort of) a real equivalent in nature.
The bombardier beetle has a similar ability and that’s all I’ll say about
that. As far as the graboid and all it’s variations are concerned this
movie avoids the lame “Precambrian life forms” explanation given in TREMORS
2. However several times the monsters are referred to as “reptilians”
which they certainly are not.
The lack of knowledge as to what these things actually are and where they came
from was an asset in the first movie but 11 years later there’d be at
least a pretty good theory. The action centers on Burt and his McGyver-like
abilities (“I’ll use this shoe-string to fashion
a crude thermo-nuclear device”). The rest of the movie is interesting
but predictable. There are plenty of funny lines mixed in with the typical
straight-to-video action, which didn’t suck. I give TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION a matching three shriek girls.
This review
copyright 2001 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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