A bland and badly-written film, with good ideas and a likable cast.
The script is clunky. It feels like a movie made by people who have seen other stories and can copy elements of stories, but don't have a clue how to TELL a story themselves. On three separate occasions random phone calls are used to propel the story forward. Characters suddenly inexplicable phone the character on-screen and rapidly provide them with just the right information to propel the story forward. This sort of thing is hilariously bad. But also frustrating because the viewer can plainly see other (subtle) ways the story could/should have been driven in that particular direction. Phone calls aside, the film is full of clunky moments like that. Something randomly happens because, basically, the script needs to get a character from A to B. Some of these instances (like when Connor is declared "a lunatic a lunatic a lunatic") are so abrupt and so badly done they are laugh-out-loud funny.
On the topic of things that are badly done in this film: a lot of the dialogue is dubbed. And the dubbing is obvious and badly. The scenes with the New York Cop character could actually be scenes from a full-on foreign language film.
The film opens with classic examples of tell-don't-show storytelling. We can forgive the lead character's opening narration to camera as he is basically recapping the events of the first film, but the Nakano character opens the movie by warning MacLeod that someone evil is coming to kill them. And that's it. He tells the hero/us that Kane is evil and then Kane appears. And, thanks to a wildly OTT performance from Mario Van Peebles, Kane spends the entire movie as a one-note villain. Relentlessly evil. And certainly no fun to watch.
The pace is good, however. Something is always happening, and the locations/flashbacks keep things fresh for the entire running time.
It all feels like a missed opportunity. The same cast and story with a good script would have made for a decent entry in the series. After all, the excellent TV series proved that it is more than possible to tell good/great stories using this formula.
4/10
The script is clunky. It feels like a movie made by people who have seen other stories and can copy elements of stories, but don't have a clue how to TELL a story themselves. On three separate occasions random phone calls are used to propel the story forward. Characters suddenly inexplicable phone the character on-screen and rapidly provide them with just the right information to propel the story forward. This sort of thing is hilariously bad. But also frustrating because the viewer can plainly see other (subtle) ways the story could/should have been driven in that particular direction. Phone calls aside, the film is full of clunky moments like that. Something randomly happens because, basically, the script needs to get a character from A to B. Some of these instances (like when Connor is declared "a lunatic a lunatic a lunatic") are so abrupt and so badly done they are laugh-out-loud funny.
On the topic of things that are badly done in this film: a lot of the dialogue is dubbed. And the dubbing is obvious and badly. The scenes with the New York Cop character could actually be scenes from a full-on foreign language film.
The film opens with classic examples of tell-don't-show storytelling. We can forgive the lead character's opening narration to camera as he is basically recapping the events of the first film, but the Nakano character opens the movie by warning MacLeod that someone evil is coming to kill them. And that's it. He tells the hero/us that Kane is evil and then Kane appears. And, thanks to a wildly OTT performance from Mario Van Peebles, Kane spends the entire movie as a one-note villain. Relentlessly evil. And certainly no fun to watch.
The pace is good, however. Something is always happening, and the locations/flashbacks keep things fresh for the entire running time.
It all feels like a missed opportunity. The same cast and story with a good script would have made for a decent entry in the series. After all, the excellent TV series proved that it is more than possible to tell good/great stories using this formula.
4/10