More comic book than before: undoubtedly having comic book writer Frank Miller (Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil) helps. Unfortunately having Irving Kershner (who directed the excellent Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)) doesn't. Kershner is no Paul Verhoeven and the movie lacks the wildness of its predecessor.
The plot has to do with a bunch of drug smugglers led by a fourteen-year-old kid and a giant robot (alike to the one featured in the first movie) inhabited by a mad baddy. The plot is incidental and merely and an excuse for some spectacular action pieces. Verhoeven's hilarious ultra-violence that made the first movie great is simply missing.
Review by James O'Ehley from The Sci-Fi Movie Page. |
