If this had been a 30-minute movie this could have been a pretty great small film. It would be like a live action movie version of the 90's animated Batman series with Batman being a woman and also a law enforcer as a police officeress (thank you, 'Falling Down' Nazi) on her mask-off days, a black Joker with a bit of Two-Face mixed in who even comes with his own Harley Quinn who goes topless for her gangster boss because why the hell not, this isn't television land.
The protagonist (Black Scorpion, duh!) is played by Joan Severance, who, at least here, is like a redheaded mix between Anne Parillaud and Shania Twain that looks especially alluring with her vigilante mask. Furthermore she's a decent actress and a charming screen presence in both her roles so that she easily could have gotten me through the movie no matter what.
And this "no matter what" is unfortunately pretty much what 'Black Scorpion II' offers, the film's balance is way off, on one hand there are over the top comic book style scenes (a style that is sometimes ALMOST overbearing especially when it plays for laughs) and on the other hand there's a lot of down to Earth austerity, it just doesn't manage to paint a convincing image of the world the movie plays in. Those rather mundane parts have too much soap operish lovey dovey that except towards the end is largely on the enjoyable side but seems like an all-too easy tactic to fill up some running time.
In those non-caped crusader parts which unfortunately dominate the film we have the heroine trying to win the heart of her partner from work which is basically like the Superman/Loise Lane thing with the gender roles reversed. What's more is that the guy is very much a dismissive jerk whose dismissive behavior is very poorly motivated. It's a nice try to make this an unconventional and therefore more interesting romance but this is just too unorthodox a setup to work, all one does is wonder why that cool chick bothers running after that jerk and how and why that guy can reject a woman like that.
Another problem is that the plot doesn't really seem to go into any particular direction. We know the main villain is VERY ANGRY (what's up with the P-word being prohibited in IMDb reviews?) and has some revenge plan because she has been mistreated (the usual super villain stuff, you get the idea) but the switch from good to bad happened too easily so she's never convincing and we don't find out what her plan is until the end. Black Scorpion herself fights crime here and there but beyond that she doesn't have a goal to accomplish either. But wait. Turns out that the love story really is what it's about in the end. Black Scorpion wants to get the jerk, THAT's her big goal. Oh no.
But holy unconventional conflict resolution, Scorpionwoman! She "defeats" the villain (screw spoiler warnings) through the power of dialectic. Black Scorpion simply talks to the baddie and convinces her that there's a better way to go about her fulfillment of desires than to kill everybody. After that's done we get an all the more generic resolution to the love story in a tacked on one-minute sequence that left a bad taste in my mouth. What a way to blow it.
So I was really into it in the first minutes of the film which, during the opening credits, did a nice job of giving the necessary information from the first film plus a fantastic opening credits song followed by a really nice action scene. Overall the action in the film was mostly the funnest part while usually for me it's the opposite, there are just few things duller for me than martial arts between actors and I even care very little for it if it's between people who know their kung-fu. So anyway. To simplify it I found the comic-book style parts of the movie largely fun while the soap opera stuff largely brought the film down, but the plot also is pretty much a mess, that became very clear during the second half of the film.
But to see how bad this actually could have been one just needs to take a short look at the TV series that came after the films, now that looks really dreadful, compared to it even the average Power Rangers stuff looks stylish...I guess. What's a pity is that I think this film and the Black Scorpion character really had potential but maybe they had already wasted most of their ammunition in the first film which I WILL have to watch now because big minuses or not I enjoyed this one enough.
The protagonist (Black Scorpion, duh!) is played by Joan Severance, who, at least here, is like a redheaded mix between Anne Parillaud and Shania Twain that looks especially alluring with her vigilante mask. Furthermore she's a decent actress and a charming screen presence in both her roles so that she easily could have gotten me through the movie no matter what.
And this "no matter what" is unfortunately pretty much what 'Black Scorpion II' offers, the film's balance is way off, on one hand there are over the top comic book style scenes (a style that is sometimes ALMOST overbearing especially when it plays for laughs) and on the other hand there's a lot of down to Earth austerity, it just doesn't manage to paint a convincing image of the world the movie plays in. Those rather mundane parts have too much soap operish lovey dovey that except towards the end is largely on the enjoyable side but seems like an all-too easy tactic to fill up some running time.
In those non-caped crusader parts which unfortunately dominate the film we have the heroine trying to win the heart of her partner from work which is basically like the Superman/Loise Lane thing with the gender roles reversed. What's more is that the guy is very much a dismissive jerk whose dismissive behavior is very poorly motivated. It's a nice try to make this an unconventional and therefore more interesting romance but this is just too unorthodox a setup to work, all one does is wonder why that cool chick bothers running after that jerk and how and why that guy can reject a woman like that.
Another problem is that the plot doesn't really seem to go into any particular direction. We know the main villain is VERY ANGRY (what's up with the P-word being prohibited in IMDb reviews?) and has some revenge plan because she has been mistreated (the usual super villain stuff, you get the idea) but the switch from good to bad happened too easily so she's never convincing and we don't find out what her plan is until the end. Black Scorpion herself fights crime here and there but beyond that she doesn't have a goal to accomplish either. But wait. Turns out that the love story really is what it's about in the end. Black Scorpion wants to get the jerk, THAT's her big goal. Oh no.
But holy unconventional conflict resolution, Scorpionwoman! She "defeats" the villain (screw spoiler warnings) through the power of dialectic. Black Scorpion simply talks to the baddie and convinces her that there's a better way to go about her fulfillment of desires than to kill everybody. After that's done we get an all the more generic resolution to the love story in a tacked on one-minute sequence that left a bad taste in my mouth. What a way to blow it.
So I was really into it in the first minutes of the film which, during the opening credits, did a nice job of giving the necessary information from the first film plus a fantastic opening credits song followed by a really nice action scene. Overall the action in the film was mostly the funnest part while usually for me it's the opposite, there are just few things duller for me than martial arts between actors and I even care very little for it if it's between people who know their kung-fu. So anyway. To simplify it I found the comic-book style parts of the movie largely fun while the soap opera stuff largely brought the film down, but the plot also is pretty much a mess, that became very clear during the second half of the film.
But to see how bad this actually could have been one just needs to take a short look at the TV series that came after the films, now that looks really dreadful, compared to it even the average Power Rangers stuff looks stylish...I guess. What's a pity is that I think this film and the Black Scorpion character really had potential but maybe they had already wasted most of their ammunition in the first film which I WILL have to watch now because big minuses or not I enjoyed this one enough.