La mouche II

I can't in good conscious call The Fly II a good film. It's just not. Gone are the memorable characters realized by strong performances and intelligent writing that touched on rich ideas. Gone, effectively, is the humanity.

But with Cronenberg, Davis and Goldblum all gone, that's to be expected, isn't it? And as far as cheap cash grabs go, The Fly II is watchable.

Strip away all the things I mentioned in the first paragraph and what are we left with? Well, the director of this film did the remarkable special effects on Cronenberg's film, and naturally those are in equally fine form here. And though the central love story here is wooden as hell, there's a subplot involving a mutant dog I thought was surprisingly touching.

I went into this simply hoping for a fun, sort of trashy 80's b-movie, and those were appropriate expectations to have. The acting is dumb and dialogue is obvious in a sort of charming way.

Unfortunately, what holds the movie back from excelling on it's own meager terms is that it repeats too many plot points from the first film, when it should be distancing itself from it a bit more.

If you are in the right mood for it, though, it's a perfectly acceptable, not-boring, joyfully disgusting way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.