(Review originally written at 21 October 2007)
The first movie "Darkman", directed by Sam Raimi, was also already made in a B-movie kind of style but in the fun and comic book type of B-movie. The kind of style all Sam Raimi movies till some extend have in them. But this movie is just made in a bad B-movie kind of way, with some horrible dialog, lacking editing and simple camera compositions. It actually shows how uniquely talented Sam Raimi is, with his hard to copy style.
And how is Durant still alive in this one? I remember that the helicopter crash from the first "Darkman" movie in which Durant died was one of the most fatal looking once out of movie history. It exploded like a balloon, with an enormous blast. No way that it's credible that anyone walked away from that one. But yet somehow had the bright idea for this sequel to let Durant return. And come on, he wasn't even the 'main' villain in the first "Darkman" movie but yet they show him in this movie as one of the biggest crime bosses in the country. But of course the Durant character is Larry Drake's greatest role and he is one of the bes movie villains out of recent movie history. So it didn't mind seeing Larry Drake reprise his role from the first movie, although I would had of course preferred a more creative solution to let his character return.
The story as a whole was a disappointing aspect of the movie. I was shocked at how simple and without ambition it was. It somehow even features a group of Neo-Nazi's and a crazy professor. The most thrilling aspects in the movie are the recycled sequences from the first movie, in which Westlake takes over the identity of the henchman of Durant. What I did liked about the movie was that it showed more as a crime fighter with morals this time. It was not just a revenge movie this time.
The movie and its characters are still all portrayed in an over-the-top comic book kind of way but it this time doesn't really work out as good as in the first movie, which is I think also partly due to the obvious lower budget of the movie.
With this movie Arnold Vosloo shows he's a good actor, although his South African accent is too notable in the movie. It's good for most of his roles but just not suitable for Dr. Peyton Westlake. He is fine as Darkman though and he obviously carefully looked at how Liam Neeson played the character previously. Also Larry Drake shines again although he also was struggling with delivering some of the badly written dialog. Not even he could make it sound good and believable. Most of the other new characters are all mostly just disappointing ones, not to mention the horrible actors that portray them all.
A disappointing movie that could had worked but just doesn't ever does so, which can for most part be blamed on the script.
4/10
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