Darkman II: The Return of Durant

In a series where your hero is a disfigured scientist with lazily explained superhuman strength and wears fake skin masks that bubble in sunlight, "Darkman II" is even more ludicrous than the original. And recasting Neeson with a cut rate, South African Billy Zane doesn't really help matters, but despite those things, this sequel isn't actually that much of a step down from the big screen predecessor. If it was already up your alley, throwing energy weapons into the mix won't dissuade anyone.

Throws out what made the first compelling - a real anti-hero. Darkman is completely comical this time, a pure super-hero careening from caper to caper. Wretched.

With Bradford May picking up the directing duties for the next two entries in the series, Darkman II: The Return Of Durant kicks off with what is probably the biggest logical leap of all, namely how could Robert Durant (Larry Drake) have survived what happened to him at the end of the first film? But that's where hack B-movie script writing comes in, and with a few lines of expository dialogue it turns out he's been in a coma for 878 days.

I liked this trashy DTV movie. It was goofy fun.

Darkman II: The Return of Durant is a far less enjoyable film than its predecessor, which itself wasn't a terribly fun watch. This one is far more dull, far less action-packed, and doesn't have the same charm that Darkman had. It doesn't have a single defining moment, and the actors were noticeably worse -- even though the villain, Larry Drake, returned. Unless you were a huge Darkman fan, you have no reason to watch this sequel.