Let's get the obvious comparison section of this review out of the way. Is Maniac Cop 2 as good as the original Maniac Cop? Well, no. But it's damn close. And in Terminator 2 fashion, while it's not quite as good, it adds a lot of fun extras to the Maniac Cop pie. In fact Maniac Cop 2 while not being quite as exciting or fresh as the first movie, adds a whole demented spin to things that is wonderful to behold.
Vicious zombie psychopath Matt Cordell is back, he's bigger, he's a lot scarier looking on account of a short sojourn at the bottom of the New York river, and man is he mad. Starting his vendetta anew with a few random victims and the man who put him in the river in the first place, Jack Forrest (played for an alarmingly short period of time by an earnest and confident Bruce Campbell, as in the original film).
Maniac Cop 2 plays up the 'unstoppable zombie SOB' element of the original, turning Cordell into a Voorhees style proper zombie cop as opposed to the disfigured mute from the original, but it works well, given that he's spent a fair while at the bottom of a river, he would have decomposed a bit, and given the increased action quotient of this addition to the series, it makes sense to have him more openly horrifying as he has to spend a lot of time on screen. Given that the scar make-up in the first movie was by all accounts only really good looking from a distance (a fact Lustig knew and exploited by avoiding having his face on screen until right at the end of the movie) this new, more zombified Cordell is a welcome addition.
Again, the movie is also convincingly tense and gritty, often wringing genuine shocks out of you, despite it's restraint and relative lack of gore. That said, Maniac Cop 2 is much more violent than Maniac Cop. The latter half of the movie has one of the most exciting and brutal shoot-outs I've seen in a western film, with Cordell tearing through an entire police station's worth of fellow officers. The increased violence could well be a turn off for those who enjoyed the almost bloodless original, but it sits well with the movie's 'bigger, harder, faster' ethos, and doesn't wreck the atmosphere.
The plot of this first sequel is pretty bonkers. The cast are as convincing as the original cast, and the hangover of Bruce Campbell and Larene Landon from the original movie (though for god's sake don't get attached to them as otherwise you may get really upset by the film, as they don't last too long if you know what I mean) makes the film feel like easing into a nice pair of old slippers. New additions Robert Davi and Claudia Christian are both amiable and fun to watch, both making interesting new leads. The plot line, involving Cordell's return from the supposed grave and eventual team-up with a religious lunatic killer to storm the jail he was convicted in, rips along at an awesome pace, never dragging, making the original seem quite slow and thoughtful in comparison.
If I have any minor criticisms of this movie, it's only that at times some of it seemed a little too over the top to take entirely seriously. While the original was quite Hitchcockian, and more of a whodunnit style plot, this is a slasher flick, albeit a clever one with a fast-pace and impeccable set pieces. While the original would appeal to a variety of audiences, this is an out and out horror movie, and as such would probably only appeal to horror fans and fans of the original Maniac Cop.
That said, this is a damn fine horror movie, and still knocks almost everything else in the genre I've seen in the last four or five months into a cocked hat. A great movie in it's own right, and a worthy addition to the series.
Vicious zombie psychopath Matt Cordell is back, he's bigger, he's a lot scarier looking on account of a short sojourn at the bottom of the New York river, and man is he mad. Starting his vendetta anew with a few random victims and the man who put him in the river in the first place, Jack Forrest (played for an alarmingly short period of time by an earnest and confident Bruce Campbell, as in the original film).
Maniac Cop 2 plays up the 'unstoppable zombie SOB' element of the original, turning Cordell into a Voorhees style proper zombie cop as opposed to the disfigured mute from the original, but it works well, given that he's spent a fair while at the bottom of a river, he would have decomposed a bit, and given the increased action quotient of this addition to the series, it makes sense to have him more openly horrifying as he has to spend a lot of time on screen. Given that the scar make-up in the first movie was by all accounts only really good looking from a distance (a fact Lustig knew and exploited by avoiding having his face on screen until right at the end of the movie) this new, more zombified Cordell is a welcome addition.
Again, the movie is also convincingly tense and gritty, often wringing genuine shocks out of you, despite it's restraint and relative lack of gore. That said, Maniac Cop 2 is much more violent than Maniac Cop. The latter half of the movie has one of the most exciting and brutal shoot-outs I've seen in a western film, with Cordell tearing through an entire police station's worth of fellow officers. The increased violence could well be a turn off for those who enjoyed the almost bloodless original, but it sits well with the movie's 'bigger, harder, faster' ethos, and doesn't wreck the atmosphere.
The plot of this first sequel is pretty bonkers. The cast are as convincing as the original cast, and the hangover of Bruce Campbell and Larene Landon from the original movie (though for god's sake don't get attached to them as otherwise you may get really upset by the film, as they don't last too long if you know what I mean) makes the film feel like easing into a nice pair of old slippers. New additions Robert Davi and Claudia Christian are both amiable and fun to watch, both making interesting new leads. The plot line, involving Cordell's return from the supposed grave and eventual team-up with a religious lunatic killer to storm the jail he was convicted in, rips along at an awesome pace, never dragging, making the original seem quite slow and thoughtful in comparison.
If I have any minor criticisms of this movie, it's only that at times some of it seemed a little too over the top to take entirely seriously. While the original was quite Hitchcockian, and more of a whodunnit style plot, this is a slasher flick, albeit a clever one with a fast-pace and impeccable set pieces. While the original would appeal to a variety of audiences, this is an out and out horror movie, and as such would probably only appeal to horror fans and fans of the original Maniac Cop.
That said, this is a damn fine horror movie, and still knocks almost everything else in the genre I've seen in the last four or five months into a cocked hat. A great movie in it's own right, and a worthy addition to the series.