Robert Ginty returns as John Eastland, the ex-Vietnam veteran turned vigilante hero from the first film in this inferior sequel.
This time around he comes to odds with a street gang led by Mario Van Peebles appearing here as a character named simply 'X' who makes Eastland's life that bit more miserable when he and his gang decide on a hostile take over of the city.
In addition, they further manage to antagonise our hero by firstly kneecapping his girlfriend and then a bit later on murdering her in her apartment! Understandably mightily vexed by this decidedly anti sociable behaviour, our man decides to take drastic action and sets about wiping the villainous buggers out! This time around he is aided by a buddy and his dumper truck although as a word of advice; don't get too attached to his pal ..
It has to be said that the film isn't a patch on its forerunner with generally toned down violence, almost comically clichéd villains and some truly awful and distracting music throughout.
The action scenes to, whilst more elaborate here, are still nowhere near as engaging as in the previous film.
Still, having said the above, our hero certainly looks more striking here having taken to wearing a welders mask and now utilising a flame thrower as his weapon of choice. In fact the image of this faceless, merciless killer is indeed very memorable in the same way that the white mask wearing Michael Myers is to the Halloween films, the Hockey mask wearing Jason Vorhees is to the Friday The 13th movies or the icon of the green and red jumper and the knife fingered glove of Freddy Kruegar is to the Nightmare On Elm Street films.
Overall, as it stands, the movie is mildly enjoyable with a number of fairly exciting scenes involving Eastland torching the bad guys to cinders, however, as a sequel to such a great original it falls rather flat.
As a final note though COOL Break dancing!
This time around he comes to odds with a street gang led by Mario Van Peebles appearing here as a character named simply 'X' who makes Eastland's life that bit more miserable when he and his gang decide on a hostile take over of the city.
In addition, they further manage to antagonise our hero by firstly kneecapping his girlfriend and then a bit later on murdering her in her apartment! Understandably mightily vexed by this decidedly anti sociable behaviour, our man decides to take drastic action and sets about wiping the villainous buggers out! This time around he is aided by a buddy and his dumper truck although as a word of advice; don't get too attached to his pal ..
It has to be said that the film isn't a patch on its forerunner with generally toned down violence, almost comically clichéd villains and some truly awful and distracting music throughout.
The action scenes to, whilst more elaborate here, are still nowhere near as engaging as in the previous film.
Still, having said the above, our hero certainly looks more striking here having taken to wearing a welders mask and now utilising a flame thrower as his weapon of choice. In fact the image of this faceless, merciless killer is indeed very memorable in the same way that the white mask wearing Michael Myers is to the Halloween films, the Hockey mask wearing Jason Vorhees is to the Friday The 13th movies or the icon of the green and red jumper and the knife fingered glove of Freddy Kruegar is to the Nightmare On Elm Street films.
Overall, as it stands, the movie is mildly enjoyable with a number of fairly exciting scenes involving Eastland torching the bad guys to cinders, however, as a sequel to such a great original it falls rather flat.
As a final note though COOL Break dancing!