Scanners II : La Nouvelle Génération

Unaware that he is a scanner, a young social misfit is mentored by a police officer to use his psychic abilities to solve crimes in this belated sequel to David Cronenberg's 'Scanners'. While not a patch on the original, 'The New Order' is hardly worthless. Many plot elements are recycled from Part One, most notably the scanner oblivious to his powers and a battle between a 'good' and 'bad' one, however, the film also takes the concept in refreshing new directions. His detective work as a scanner is fascinating (even if we only ever really see it in action once); there is a great bit where he uses scanning to stop a store robbery; another scanner controls video arcade machines with his abilities; and at its most touching, our protagonist inadvertently uses his scanning powers to comfort and calm down pet store animals. The film is very well photographed too with lots of low camera angles and tracking shots courtesy of 'My Bloody Valentine' cinematographer Rodney Gibbons. The biggest minus here is the acting, which varies from non-charismatic to annoyingly over-the-top, with Raoul Max Trujillo the worst offender in the latter regard. The action sequences are solid, the special effects are almost as good as in the original, and while the atmosphere is never the same, the film at least manages to add a lot of extra ideas to the mythology of scanners.

Scanners II was released in the late 80's or early 90's, it was one of the last true low budget horror films before my town turned into big budget studio depot for films. Scanners II is both visually stunning with some great opening shots of Montreal and has a great comic book style plot. Yeah sure the connection to the first Scanners was kinda cheesy in execution, but this film is alot faster in pace and has more action than the very slow paced Scanners. The FX by Mike Smithson are great and very realistic before our dependence to all that is CGI. But overall the performances are good but nothing to write home about. Overall Scanners II has good cinematography and a clever little story of world domination to entertain fans as well as the casual viewer. I suggest to anyone to check it out and be totally entertained for 100 minutes.

I know, from looking at other people's reviews, that there are some who feel that this is an 'okay' sequel to David Cronenberg's classic eighties horror flick 'Scanners.' And, maybe it was... once upon a time. However, there are those films that stand the test of time and then there are those who do not age well. I feel this is the latter.

It's about more of those psychics (or 'scanners' as they call them here). A corrupt police chief wants to harness their unnatural power to end crime (and generally make himself equally powerful). But, after years of experimenting on boring scanners who no one cares about, he finds lovely, nice scanner 'David' to exploit. But, luckily for all that is good, David is too nice to be used and sets about ending this corrupt cop's regime before it really starts.

Whereas you can watch Star Wars and not be bothered by the 'seventies haircuts' Han and Luke are sporting, here, everything just seems waaaay too eighties (which is doubly ironic as it's made in 1990).

But it's not just the look of the film I disliked - it's also the story. Everything just happens to fit together waaay too well to be believable. It's one coincidence and obvious plot-motivating device after the next. The (seemingly-mandatory) love story is quite unnecessary and forced, plus the characters either under-act or overact (and I'm thinking about the 'bad scanner' when I mention overacting - he's practically a pantomime villain he's that nasty!). Yes, there's the odd bit of decent gore, but that's a small part of an 1 hour 40 minute film.

Maybe this was an okay film in the eighties, or if you've never seen the original, but, if you're looking for dark and nasty horror, stick to the first Scanners - it's head and shoulders over this one.

"Scanners II: The New Order" is about as decent a sequel as we could have gotten to David Cronenbergs' "Scanners". There are some good ideas in the screenplay by B. J. Nelson ("Lone Wolf McQuade"), and the story is watchable enough. Director Christian Duguay is no Cronenberg, but he's not a slouch either, giving the proceedings a flashy beginning and an acceptable pace.

David Hewlett ('Stargate: Atlantis', "Rise of the Planet of the Apes") stars as David Kellum, an ordinary young man who learns that he has "scanning" abilities. A power crazed police detective named John Forrester (Yvan Ponton), in collaboration with unscrupulous scientists, is determined to corral Scanners like David, corrupt them, and use them to his own advantage.

The dialogue isn't always that great, and neither are some of the performances, but there's enough pizazz here to make this an acceptable viewing. Of course, this being a "Scanners" film, we expect and crave at least one good exploding head shot, and we get it, but we have to wait a pretty long time before that happens. The makeup effects are generally pulled off well, the filmmaking fairly slick looking.

Hewlett is okay as the hero. Lovely Deborah Raffin is the token American "name", and doesn't show up until well into the story. Isabelle Mejias is sexy and appealing as the heros' love interest. Tom Butler plays the nefarious Dr. Morse; Vlasta Vrana is the crooked Lt. Gelson. Raoul Trujillo has more fun than anybody as the wild eyed Peter Drak, who causes the chaos that opens the film.

This viewer had a good enough time with this one. Fans of the Cronenberg original may like it as well.

Six out of 10.

I have always love the film Scanners and have always loved David Cronenberg, but after Deadringers, I always felt he started to go downhill from a wonderful ride in the horror genre. Scanners was one of his best in his early period, when he was working from original screenplays and wasn't in an adaptation funk at all (ie., Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly and Crash). It was a promising plotline and was very entertaining. It has also become a cult classic. So when I saw this sequel when it first came out, I didn't think it would be as good as it is.

I'll spare you the plotline since you've undoubtably have read the other reviews, but I will comment on the films structure. It works surprisingly well considering the original didn't leave much for a sequel like this one. If one were to truly look at the first film for a sequel, the likely route would have been to have the main characters be on the run from the secret corporate organizations (a plotline used in Firestarter) which could lead to a very boring and predictable outcome. But this film was made ten years later and the plotline ideas can have new twists and it is this factor that makes this film a success.

The opening ropes you in by the way it mimics the opening to the original--homeless, drifting Scanner losses mind in public and gets corralled by the guys in shades and trenchcoats. But its different from the original opening in that Scanners 2 opens with the vagabond Scanner screaming at the city in agony as the mental voices of the population invade his extrasensory mind and drive him crazy. It would be like an itch you can't scratch. I liked this aspect of the opening and it made me realize the filmmaker was a huge fan of the first film. It proved he wanted to be true to the first film and not just make another sequel in name only. The plot device of making the Scanners junkies to mind suppressing drugs was another excellent addition. It further proves the filmmaker's desire to make a good sequel.

If you loved the first film, you have to give this one a try. It is very entertaining, great character development and delivers in the gore factor department.