ThiefHott Too much of everything

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Keira Brennan The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Leofwine_draca THE HITCHER was a good thriller of the 1980s that's been well remembered by a lot of fans, not least thanks to Rutger Hauer giving one of his best performances as the ice-cold, stop-at-nothing serial killer. In more recent years, Hollywood has tried, unsuccessfully, to have another slice of the cake, first by releasing this straight-to-video sequel and then by releasing a bigger budgeted remake with Sean Bean in the Hauer role. I've seen the latter, and it's nothing special, so this undistinguished sequel was the last of the 'hitcher' films (not counting the countless rip-offs) that I had to see. I wasn't missing much.The most interesting thing about the film is that C. Thomas Howell reprises his role from the first film. I didn't like him much in THE HITCHER, but he's grown up a lot since then and I actually found that he gave a pretty good performance. For me, he was the most interesting person on screen. He provides a nice, fitting link between the first and the second films, and as the sole returning actor, a lot rests on his shoulders, but he doesn't let that stop him.The worst thing about this sequel, though, is the story, which is just a blatant copy of the first film's plot. A hitcher is picked up and then dropped off after being revealed to be a psychopath. There's shtick with severed fingers, roadside cafes, and somebody who gets tied up between a truck cab and its stationary load. Once again, the intrepid sheriff department don't believe a word of what's going on, so it's up to our youthful hero to stop the hitcher in his tracks. Yep, we've seen it all before and done better, so aside from the plane vs. truck climax (which I liked, and which is something new), don't go expecting originality here.This time around the hitcher himself is played by regular bad guy for hire Jake Busey, son of Gary. Jake's been burning up the screen in the likes of ROAD HOUSE 2 and IDENTITY, so he seems an obvious choice for the part. He doesn't come close to Hauer's performance, though, or even Bean's for that matter. Busey's encouraged to go way over the top at all times, with plenty of wisecracks and humour along the way. I appreciate the vitality he brings to the film, and I do like him as an actor, but he just doesn't sit right here. Better is Kari Wuhrer, as the attractive heroine forced to go up against the maniac. Many women in modern horror films are pretty, young and poor actresses to boot, but not so Wuhrer. She really delivers her part and it was a delight to have her on screen.Anyway, things play out as you'd imagine, and there's nothing in the way of shocks or indeed surprises (although the film does open with a most effective twist). Saying that, the desert locations are well used and the action has a certain slickness about it that makes it appealing, so I can't say I didn't enjoy this one; for a straight-to-video sequel made almost twenty years after the original, I think it does okay.

ianmutimer I wasn't expecting much, but after introducing the lead character, setting up the storyline, it probably ain't the best idea to then go ahead and kill him off after 5 mins, now is it? NO IT'S NOT! They don't have a clue the hitcher is a dangerous psycho, even though when he first meets them he stares at them and says in a sleazy voice 'thanks, I've been waiting for you'! One small little problem that the producer of this movie seemed to have overlooked - how the heck is the hitcher supposed to be the same guy as 17 years ago, when he now looks about 20 years younger now?! The remainder of this lame movie i witnessed Busey Jr pull a few cheesy grins whilst basically killing the whole police force as they believe all his porkies and let him free every time. The chick in it almost deserves to be so easily unbelievably framed for all the murders because she does really dumb things like, when the psycho was frying up some breakfast he kills all the cops with the shotgun and then throws the gun to the girl and says catch, she catches, put her grubby prints ALL over it, then the police arrest her. Later on, she obviously hasn't learned from her mistakes when, psycho man kills some more cops, wipes his prints off, and throws the gun to her. What does she do? - immediately pick up the gun of course! who wouldn't? Naturally at the end of the movie she kills him, after flying a plane near him whilst he's driving a truck for about 4 hours, it still mystifies me what she was trying to do. She kills him by pointing a shotgun at him and staring at the gasoline truck behind him and then saying she doesn't want to get burnt (which i think, is a pretty clear signal what she is about to do) but he just slowly turns around then turns back wearing a confused expression upon his face. Dufus!This is OK if there is nothing else on. Can't beat the original, 2007 remake is lame as well!

Max_cinefilo89 Remember The Hitcher? A violent, suspenseful cult flick starring Rutger Hauer? Well, it didn't need a sequel, did it? That's what any average moviegoer would say.Unfortunately, someone thought a second installment was necessary, hence this cheap rehash of the original, which sees Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) and his girlfriend threatened by a young, crazy hitchhiker (Jake Busey) who turns out to be (hold on) the reincarnation of John Ryder, the psycho Jim killed in the first film. So what's going to happen? The usual, I'd say: Ryder Jr. kills a lot of people, blames the protagonists, blah blah blah...This is the kind of sequel that has "cheap" written all over it, with its predictable screenplay, excessively familiar death scenes (some are copied shot by shot from the original) and embarrassingly dull acting: Howell has lost all the charm he had in 1986, his female co-star does nothing but scream, and Busey's attempt at channeling Rutger Hauer fails within 30 seconds from his first appearance. The whole reincarnation thing also robs the original film's climax of its strength: unlike Halloween killer Michael Myers, Ryder wasn't supposed to return.The good news is, no one seems to have made plans for a Hitcher III so far, thus leaving only this straight-to-video disaster as a sad footnote in the horror genre.

Frank Markland SPOILERS WITHIN! C. Thomas Howell returns as Jim Halsey, the kid from the first Hitcher who has now become a police officer due to the trauma experienced at the close of the last film. However due to psychological problems Howell is suspended and is convinced into coming to Texas where it all happened and having learned his lesson he refuses to pick up hitch-hikers but because he brought Kari Wuher with him, she makes him do so and it all happens again, except the action is with Kari Wuher. Let me explain that I heard that they are making a remake of The Hitcher with a woman in C.Thomas Howell's part. Now of course this is an extremely bad idea since well a woman being chased by a psychopath is so derivative it sucks away any tension from what could be done with such a premise. Back to Hitcher 2, by making the lead hero a woman it becomes derivative before it can even take off. Also one of the things completely lame is that as others have mentioned, Howell would have been a far more enjoyable actor to see play the Hitcher, after all Howell is older and looks far more worn than Jake Busey. Busey is too cartoonish and never for a microsecond institutes anything scary. Howell and Wuher do manage to give credible performances but mainly once Howell exits the picture (Because the movie kills him off!) the movie lacks any continuity it has with the original. Therefore this is a sequel that comes off more as a hack remake than it does a sequel. In fact it's all just so ghastly as the chase sequences recall the vast superiority of the first movie and worst of all, the movie is utterly boring. I'm giving it only a one star because it starts off reasonably watchable but after that it's just painful garbage to sit through.* out of 4-(Bad)