Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995)

 

Against quite a lot of odds, the first 'Darkman' was a success. Sure, it wasn't a blockbuster by any means, but the character did endear enough people to his cause that a sequel was warranted. But as is often the case, the quality did diminish, as this one did not have the lucury of retaining Sam Raimi. So they did the next best thing and brought back Larry Drake as the bad guy, because he did leave quite an ominous impression in the first one. 

Darkman himself is now miraculously changed into Arnold Vosloo, but that's okay. He is a bit less theatrical than Liam Neeson in the part which is a bit of a shame, but it makes his character feel somewhat more grounded. And Vosloo is a charismatic man, however you look at it. But the quest is far from over, as Darkman comes to the realisation that Durant, his arch nemesis, is still alive. 

How? Seeing as he did blow up in the first one in quite spectacular fashion? 

This film really yada-yadas that part. He just was in a coma with barely a scratch. He must've been fireproof. Or explosionproof. Or even crashproof. 

Doesn't really matter, Larry Drake owns the part of suave bastard Durant with gusto and he is by far the best reason to watch this. The rest of the plot is almost a rehash of the first one, with some subtle nuances. Darkman discovers some scientist is also working on synthetic skin, but Durant wants to buy his building. The scientist refuses and thus gets killed. Then they want to work over the scientist's sister and Darkman now needs his revenge a second time. 

This time, Durant gets blown up in a car. Yes, this time it's pretty final. Well, that's the idea, but we also thought he was gone after the first one. But seeing as too many years have passed and this franchise has been fairly dead for some time, no one's coming back for more. 

The second outing is by no means close to the original. That had some twisted humour, fun camerawork and nothing to lose. This one, not so much. The humour is mostly gone and the makers opted to go for a more straightforward action oriented film, but it doesn't quite gel as well as before. The camerawork isn't as innovative as Raimi's, and several Dutch angles not a special project make (I'm looking at you, 'Battlefield Earth'). Maybe they knew their story was part rehash, part diluting the first one, so they brought back Drake, as his delivery and presence is memorable, if a bit dodgy at times. Vosloo does his best, but he isn't given much to work with. The rest of the characters are incredibly forgettable, with some subplots that go nowhere. 

The first one is still an enjoyable watch to this day, but this one is nothing special. Only for hardcore fans, otherwise you can safely ignore this.