BEST OF THE BEST 2
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Date Released: 3/5/93 Running Length: 1:43 Rated: R (Extreme violence, language, mature themes)
Starring: Eric Roberts, Phillip Rhee, Christopher Penn, Ralf Moeller, Wayne Newton Director: Robert Radler Producers: Peter E. Strauss and Phillip Rhee Screenplay: Max Strom and John Allen Nelson Music: David Michael Frank Released by The Movie Group (through Twentieth Century Fox)
Alex (Eric Roberts) and Tommy (Phillip Rhee) are martial arts experts (last seen in the uninspired BEST OF THE BEST). When one of their friends is killed in an underground pit-fight against the sadistic, bloodthirsty brute Brakus (Ralf Moeller), the situation becomes personal. Alex and Tommy are determined to get Brakus--if he doesn't get them first, that is.
BEST OF THE BEST 2 is a shameless celebration of blood and violence--a human cockfight with little style and no subtlety. In many films of this nature, the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the good guys let the defeated villains live (and presumably face a court hearing), while the bad guys kill everyone in sight. That isn't the case in this movie. There's no real discrimination between who does the killing. Good guys and bad guys end up with blood on their hands.
There's no doubt who's good and who's bad, either. The film goes through a rather unnecessarily blunt depiction of Brakus as a devil incarnate. By the same token, Alex and Tommy are presented as caring people who only kill when pushed to it. None of this "characterization" is particularly effective, except in showing how truly one-dimensional the script--and the people who populate it--is.
I suppose most people that go to see this film will be expecting a lot of fight sequences and little else. That's exactly what they get. There's a slight visceral appeal to some of these moments, but it's not enough to do more than momentarily stir the blood. The humor in this movie, when it's intentional, is off-key and the dialogue is hopelessly mired in banalities.
Watching BEST OF THE BEST 2, with a villain who can barely speak English and the death of a friend to motivate the events of the film, I was strongly reminded of ROCKY IV, one of the weakest and least-watchable movies of Stallone's saga. One would think that if one of the Rocky films was going to be imitated, the movie makers would choose one of the better entries in that series.
I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this to a casual movie-goer. The film is aimed at a specific group of people--male teenagers--and those who go into BEST OF THE BEST 2 with open eyes (not expecting plot, characters, dialogue, or anything better than mediocre acting) will probably be reasonably satisfied. Death and violence have become so commonplace in the cinema that it's difficult to be shocked by the gratuitous quantities in this movie, especially considering the motives of the people behind the picture.
Rating: 5.1 (D+, *1/2)
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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