Review of Darkman II: The Return of Durant

Introduction

The super hero genre was given a new lease of life in the nineties thanks mainly to the 1989 success of Batman and it’s sequel, Batman Returns. Darkman was seen by many as an attempt to cash in on this success but as a movie in it’s own right it wasn’t too bad at all.

The sequel, Darkman II : The Return of Durant, attempts to pick up 2 and a bit years after the first one. You see, the main evil guy from the first movie (Robert G Durant) didn’t actually die when his helicopter hit a bridge and burst into flames. God bless asbestos underwear :). Anyway, it’s back to the usual revenge routine for the Darkman as he attempts to finish the job properly this time, instead of seeking revenge on whoever cut the budget for this second outing :).

Video

The DVD presents a good quality 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer that surprised me it has to be said. Knowing that this was a low budget cash in movie I expected far worse. It’s not reference quality or anything but it surpasses VHS and isn’t half bad.

Audio

Dolby Pro-Logic rules! Well, it did 5 years ago :). This soundtrack isn’t too bad considering it’s only Pro-Logic. Nothing particularly amazing but there’s plenty of sound all around. The actual sound itself has 2 dire flaws. Firstly this has to the first film I have ever heard where gunfire sounds like the twang made by an elastic band. This is certainly enough to ruin any illusion of reality trying to be created. Secondly the lip-synch is awful for the majority of the first half if this movie, possibly the worst I’ve seen.

The score for this movie is very Batman Returns `esqe. No surprise then that it`s another piece from Danny Elfman (Batman, Batman Returns). Even this fails to deliver though. I kept expecting it to burst into the Batman theme at any time and whilst that wouldn`t have been a bad thing it`s not really fitting in a different movie and more effort should have been made to distinguish this score from his others.

Features

Trailers for all three Darkman movies . . . yes there is a third one :P. And that’s your lot.

Conclusion

I enjoyed the first Darkman movie. It was a very novel idea and showed a fair amount of potential. In the first movie Darkman was played by Liam Neeson, and played very well. It’s a shame that he wasn’t in this one, they probably couldn’t afford him so Arnold Vosloo (the nasty Egyptian guy from The Mummy) was brought in to replace him. Living up to Liam Neeson was never going to be easy but poor old Arnold doesn’t even come close. The way Neeson portrayed the inner torment in the first movie was excellent and really helped the audience to empathise with the main characters unfortunate position. This level of emotional portrayal is completely missing from this instalment but then again you can’t blame Arnold for everything.

Right from the start you know this is going to be poor. The premise of the main bad guy, Robert G Durant (Larry Drake), surviving his helicopter hitting a bridge and bursting into flames at the end of the first movie is totally implausible. Add to that the fact that he survived in one piece and barely marked and it’s totally and utterly ludicrous. Yes I know that movies involve a fair amount of suspension of disbelief but this takes it too far and spoils any real chance the movie had right from the start.

The film then simply rehashes the first one but without the emotional attachment to the main character and also without any of the clever use of the masks from the first film as well. This has all been done before and far better in the first Darkman movie.

Not recommended.