Boondock Saints 2

I finally got the chance to see Boondock Saints 2 recently in Hollywood. I had already heard so much from friends on whether it was bad or good that it was hard to keep an open mind and blank slate going into it.

There were a lot of things that BS2 had to go up against:

1. BS is easily one of the best cult movies of all time.
2. I was seeing BS2 on a screen not much bigger than one at home.
3. Theaters still do not carry Red Vines and being in a rush to get to the theater, I forgot to grab some.

Bias aside, I promised myself I would be fair. The verdict? It still sucked.

The main thing that the second movie lacked was continuity. In the span between the films, Agent Smecker has died, the boys have hung up their killing crosses and gone into hiding while Boston’s finest just gets more retarded.

Some stuff goes down requiring them to come back to Boston where a fresh crop of wannabe mobsters is in need of a good Irish harvesting.

I don’t want to give away the rest of the movie, but instead just kind of point out some flaws and highlights.

Flaws:

1. Replacing Rocco’s character with a Mexican lookalike was bland. The character shows this amazing ability to kick ass and then becomes comic relief for the rest of the movie.
2. Smecker’s replacement was coy and convenient, but the “sexy” shots and her apparent awareness of the camera were distracting. What the hell was with the cowgirl scene?
3. The ending wasn’t very climaxing and a movie SHOULD NEVER END setting up another film unless it’s a structured trilogy like Back to the Future or Lord of the Rings. Take lessons from Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean that if a movie can’t stand in its own right it will flop on its face.
4. Don’t use your movie to express your social and political beliefs. I know BS Prime got a lot of flack for coming out around Columbine getting itself blacklisted, but when you break the flow of a movie to interject your own personal thoughts on life it really just mucks things up. Save that for your twitter or your blog.
5. If you are going to use slow-motion or take out sound-effects, don’t do it for more than a minute or you lose the viewer’s attention. We like shiny loud things remember?

Highlights:

1. The acting talent of some of the lesser actors has improved greatly. It was a lot of fun seeing them flourish in their own right.
2. Getting the Duke’s background story was a fun treat. It helped tie in the original film rather well.
3. The film was just as funny as the predecessor.
4. As usual, great soundtrack. The music still captures the film’s tone great.
5. Accent’s are sexy.


As you can see, I struggled to give the same amount of positive as negative. It’s just that, for a sequel, you need to take the strengths of your first movie and shift it into the next gear. BS 2 didn’t do that. Instead, it took all the strengths of the first movie, and copied them resulting in a cheaper lackluster step-child of a movie that really just gives you a deeper nostalgia for the first film.

Who knows, maybe the third one will have the same effect for the second one. Until then, BS 2 was exactly that, BS.