Penitentiary II

Between the opening parody of the Star Wars crawl that informs us our hero is in danger because Ernie Hudson didn't get to fuck his ass in the first movie and the finale in which the welterweight championship changes hands in a prison while an Al Michaels-impersonating announcer recreates the Miracle-on-Ice call before adding "I BELIEVE IN APPLE PIE!!! I BELIEVE IN BROTHERHOOD!!!" as a black midget fucks a hooker under the ring, there is a genuinely original satirical intelligence at work here.

Much better in every way than the original. The acting, camera work directing, and dialogue are still bad but at least the story and some of the scenes were more fun. Mr T & Ernie Hudson were pluses.

This is not a good movie. It suffers from corny dialogue, poor acting, lame jokes involving a midget trying to have sex, etc. But it's clear that Fanaka was invested in the project - more and more he strikes me as a black Ed Wood - and the film is so insane that it's usually pretty interesting.

The first one had an almost documenatry style with a lot of scenes that felt improvised. This one is following the blaxploitation formula more closely and it's working just as well; I'd say it's more entertaining of the two. Ernie Hudson is great as the over the top villain and the whole film is filled with colorful characters like Hudson's two henchmen and numerous weird details. All in all, a fun blaxploitation "Rocky" and it's no wonder that Cannon Films wanted to get the rights for this.