Only very recently I found out there's a second - and even a third - Darkman movie available on the rental market. Another member of the horror forum on this website reviewed all three of them a couple of months ago, and it was through his thread and directions I found my way to "The Return of Durant" (part two) and "Die Darkman Die" (part three). Talk about anonymous releases! It's not too surprising, since the original Sam Raimi film was fairly successful and definitely showed sequel potential, but it's still weird the producers opted for such a modest and inconspicuous release. Anyway, I wasn't in too much of a hurry to track them down, but I was remotely interested in the first sequel because Larry Drake reprises his glorious role of the mega-malevolent but ultra-cool villain Robert G. Durant. Partly because he was one of the main attractions in the original but mostly because I was curious to see how exactly they would bring his character back from the death, since he died pretty nastily in a helicopter crash at the end of the first "Darkman". Here I was imagining possible scenarios where Durant would get cloned or perhaps even resurrected through using some of the advanced scientific research Peyton Westlake was researching, but nooooooooooooooo! The almighty Robert G. Durant awakes from a three year coma from one moment onto the other! How freaking unimaginative and in fact quite impossible if you remember the images of that helicopter crash. Darkman himself transformed from Liam Neeson into Arnold Vosloo (a horrible actor with the most random face) but you're not supposed to notice that and his whole romantic background with Frances McDormand suddenly vanished as well. Other than that, "Darkman II" carries on where Raimi's film finished, as Peyton Westlake still alters scientific research with prowling the crime-infested streets as an avenging angel. He finally found a partner who's able to help him with the fine-tuning of his synthetic skin development, but this doctor then gets killed by Durant and his accomplices because he's laboratory is the ideal factory to construct illegal weapons. More than reason enough for Darkman to go after Durant again and finish him off for good this time.
"Darkman II" isn't as disastrous as it looks, I have to admit. It's a textbook and completely unsurprising B-movie, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun. There are several grotesquely absurd action scenes with big guns and nasty falls from great heights. This franchise has a thing with characters falling from heights, for sure! The stunts and make-up effects are obviously less impressive here than in the original, but the budget was restricted and director Bradford May indisputably isn't playing in the same league as Sam Raimi. The film's main trump is Larry Drake and, of course, his sadistic one-liners and grim facial expressions. The entire movie revolves around him, and that's quite logical since Arnold Vosloo is a terrible actor. B-movie beauty queen Kim Delaney is a joy to behold as well, but her share in the script is sadly too small. Not bad if you have an hour and a half to waste, but forget everything you know about the violent and comic-book styled original masterwork.
"Darkman II" isn't as disastrous as it looks, I have to admit. It's a textbook and completely unsurprising B-movie, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun. There are several grotesquely absurd action scenes with big guns and nasty falls from great heights. This franchise has a thing with characters falling from heights, for sure! The stunts and make-up effects are obviously less impressive here than in the original, but the budget was restricted and director Bradford May indisputably isn't playing in the same league as Sam Raimi. The film's main trump is Larry Drake and, of course, his sadistic one-liners and grim facial expressions. The entire movie revolves around him, and that's quite logical since Arnold Vosloo is a terrible actor. B-movie beauty queen Kim Delaney is a joy to behold as well, but her share in the script is sadly too small. Not bad if you have an hour and a half to waste, but forget everything you know about the violent and comic-book styled original masterwork.