scythertitus

I suppose the main question is: why?

Usually a low budget holiday romp is fun. With over the top gore and nudity. This film seems to pretend it has that but never really delivers all that much, and it doesn't have any decent writing or acting to make up for this.

There are lots of scenes where something wacky or wild is supposed to be happening, but it's far too clear that nothing really is going on. There are lots of ways to pad out a tiny budget and this film seems to just hope that optimism and people being in on the joke will cover it, and it doesn't.

I wanted to like this, I really did!

It's about a time travelling group of children with powers who grew up together but it's also very angsty. There are lots of similarities plot-wise to suspect that Gerard Way saw this and was like "What if this, but good?" before throwing in some X-Men and Doom Patrol along with it for good measure.

You could argue this is a 90s attempt at something like a Doom Patrol, although it is plainly awful. The effects, action and acting are all terrible and there is almost no story when you break it down. Some films are ahead of their time, and some really should not have been made until later, and this is the latter. I'm not saying it would work all that much better, but with a different script, actors, and effects it might have been alright.

Overall you should almost certainly should avoid this. There are a couple of funnily bad moments, but most of it is just dull.

I don't know what happened to the writer/director between this and the original, maybe just age? Either way after having watched both back to back it is insane that they came from the same mind.

The first is both poignant and satirical, dripping with irony and original takes. The sequel is, bar some interesting ideas thrown in but never realised, simply a celebration of Punk and escapism. It lacks almost everything that made the original great. Even in the first 5 minutes you can tell the difference. Everything in the sequel is glamorised, there are touches of struggle, but mostly it's something to aspire to. The original starts off showing how crappy the lifestyle is and how false a lot of the philosophy is. There is a real sense of hopelessness and anarchy, whereas this film is basically saying "yay, it's cool to be yourself!"

Overall there are things to like here and it works for a 12 year old to watch and want to emulate, but somehow the original is much more advanced despite being over 20 years old. It makes no sense, maybe it is supposed to be ironic. The original message seemed to be that everyone sells out in the end, and this could act as a meta proof of that, if so it is genius!