Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

THE FLY II

THE FLY II (1989). Director: Chris Walas.

Martin (Eric Stoltz), the son of Seth Brundle from the remake of The Fly, fully grown at five [!], is raised in an isolated section of a laboratory, whose head, Bartok (Lee Richardson) -- although he pretends to be a father to the boy -- is only hoping to use the creature he'll turn into as a kind of weapon. Martin wants love, and nearly gets it in the form of employee Beth (Daphne Zuniga), but even she is horrified when Martin begins ... changing ... due to his mutated genes. Then the Martin-creature takes off after all of his tormentors with predictable if messy results. The Fly II starts off well -- has some good scenes such as when Martin discovers his beloved dog didn't die but was used in a ghastly experiment -- but quickly becomes schlocky, and not even very good performances from Stoltz, Richardson and others can salvage it, although it is fairly entertaining throughout and moves fast. At least it's better than Return of the Fly, the sequel to the original. Some of the characters in this, such as Dr. Jainway (Ann Marie Lee), are so odious that they seem like variations of Snidely Whiplash!

Verdict: Stick with the first and best. **1/2.

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