Black Scorpion II: Aftershock

...but still not awfully good. Joan Severance is a pretty decent actress and at over six feet certainly looks comic bookish, but she is badly miscast as an action heroine. She works better in slower paced vehicles and lacks the nervous energy or athleticism necessary for a costumed vigilante. Severance comes off a little better here, thanks to the fact that the director went for an old school Batman approach, with kooky angles, zippy camera-work and cartoonish colors, which tend to distract the viewer from the fact that she is too statuesque and languorous to be a crime fighter. Frankly, she would have trouble beating a dazed sloth to the punch... The story is some comic book nonsense about finding a super villain with an earthquake machine, and this is actually an improvement over the first movie's straight revenge plot. The whole exercise is pretty absurd to start, so better to just go with that. As a live action cartoon, it's not bad entertainment, and the production values are adequate despite an obviously limited budget.

A sexual anti-hero female batman ripoff Background I have watched both Black Scorpions (I & II). The 2nd one is better than the 1st one. But you must watch both films in order to understand the bi-logy. I havent seen the series yet. Roger Corman has made a lot of b-movies that tried to make parody of "mainstream" films.

Potentials The Black Scorpion had a lot of potentials either as introducing a new sexy female hero, or a dark movie of heroes & anti-heroes or as a parody of batman or creating a highly erotic universe of heroes and villains. The film is failing to fulfill any of these aims.

Is it worth to watch it?

It depends. The filmmakers did not make any try to hide that they didnt care for scenario, or developing any depth of characters/events. Highly erotic anti-hero universe with revealing cosplay costumes, high heels, with good closeups, good naked boobs, some clever dialogues, good makeup with quality camera shots and good artistic sceneries simply do not exists in quantities. It is a rarity. And Black scorpion had a lot of potentials. Black scorpion films had all elements of success except depth of everything and connecting the dots.

What I Liked: 1) Sexy revealing female costumes 2) The potential of an universe of heroes without hiding their sexuality and erotism 3) Good (quick-changing) camera shots 4) fast clever dialogues 5) most of characters were very unique 6) nice erotic scenes and boobs 67 The potential to become something more...

What I didnt like: 1) To try to parody Batman in a fail way 2) Smoking - a lot of smoking!

3) Black Scorpion not doing much as female super hero (i think thats was one of the aim of the film) 4) The non-existence of depth of characters and events.

5) The quick and violent way to finish with villains.

What can you possibly say about "Black Scorpion II" other than that it was much worse than the first. The dialogue was banal, the action minimal, the plot barely existent. Even the camera shots, especially when the director chose to go into shaky slo-mo for the "action" sequences, was gawd-aweful!

I hope Sci-Fi does a better job with it's Black Scorpion TV series (debuting this Friday, 2/9).

Some people would have thought that one "Black Scorpion" film was quite enough. Indeed, some people, myself included, thought that one Black Scorpion film was more than enough, but enough people obviously disagreed with that analysis to persuade the producers to come up with a sequel.

The title character is essentially a female Batman, a crime fighting superheroine who (like Batman but unlike Superman or Spiderman) does not have any super powers but relies upon a combination of martial arts and advanced technology to overcome the bad guys. Just as Batman had his Batmobile, so the Black Scorpion (who in real life is a police detective named Darcy Walker) has her own high-tech car, the Scorpionmobile. In the first instalment she saw off one gang of supervillains; here she has to deal with a new crowd, including the giggling Gangster Prankster (an obvious rip-off of Batman's nemesis The Joker) and a woman calling herself Aftershock who aims to cause an earthquake to destroy the City of Angels (for which read Los Angeles).

The original "Black Scorpion" film was bad enough, but this one is even worse. Both were comedies based upon one single joke, namely that the superhero concept is something essentially ridiculous which can serve as the basis for camp humour using exaggerated characters and unrealistic plotting and dialogue. (The same joke served as the basis of that old "Batman" TV series from the sixties, and indeed as the basis of some of the entries in the more recent "Batman" film franchise). I have never been the greatest fan of superhero movies, but at least the likes of "Spiderman" and "Batman Begins" have shown that it is possible to make decent films within the genre by treating the concept with a modicum of seriousness and without resorting to camp, self-mocking humour. One-joke comedies quickly outstay their welcome; the first "Black Scorpion" film ran out of steam about halfway through, after which the whole thing quickly became tiresome. "Black Scorpion II" never had any steam to start with and is tiresome from the very beginning.

The standard of acting is appalling; Joan Severance as the heroine shows even more clearly than she did in the first film that she was cast on the basis of looks rather than talent, but the rest of the cast are no more talented and in most cases do not even have looks to recommend them. (Whoever thought Sherrie Rose made a seductive villainess was sadly mistaken). I was surprised to see Rick Rossovich cast as a "construction foreman"; in the late eighties he was regarded as a rising star after roles in "Top Gun" and "Roxanne", so it must have been something of a comedown for him to be cast in a bit part in a movie as dire as this one.

The one good thing that can be said about "Black Scorpion II" is that, although it was followed in 2001 by a "Black Scorpion" TV series, it was the last of its line in the cinema and did not spawn a "Black Scorpion III". One must at least be thankful for small mercies. 2/10

I actually got this movie under the mistaken impression I was getting a Fred Williamson movie (which I believe is titled Black Cobra). Instead I got this direct to video Batman knock off. We've got a clear Joker rip-off villan, who's scenes are very over the top, and somewhat racist. The female protagonist and her lover who have no chemistry what so ever. The laughable female villan and the paper thin, Batman t.v. series plot, all played almost completely seriously even though this whole mess is very campy. The best part of this is Garrett Morris, who's actually pretty amusing as our heroine's mechanic. He's got to be an amazing one, since he's able to make/fix a car that can transform into an another one at the touch of a button. Overall, it provides a few laughs, even if its mostly boring.>