Black Scorpion II: Aftershock

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.

...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.

Wow.

This was so awful I just don't know what to say.

I'm amazed that anyone involved with this actually used their real names. I know it's tough to be a struggling actor but man, what were they thinking?

I don't even want to think about the fact that someone "wrote" this.

I'm going to stay away from the TV for a few days now.

If you've seen or are planning to see this film, chances are you've already seen the first. If not, I suggest you go see that, even if you only have the chance to see one of them. It's better and it basically lays the foundation for this film. This has more silliness and less style than the first, and one will be hard pressed to find someone, somewhere who wouldn't rather have seen the first, if given the choice(if the popularity-based ratings are anything to go by, at least). The plot is, much like the first, very simplistic and formulaic. It's pretty much ripped straight out of a 60's superhero comic book. The characters, most of them returning from the first film, continue to be comic relief and clichés, and a few of them, as little development as they have(in the first) actually go backwards as far as that goes. The villains both lack the originality of the one of the first film; both are rather obviously rip-offs of famous superhero villains(or super-villains, for short). The humor goes more towards the silly and campy, something the first one started nicely on. Fewer one-liners, unfortunately. The action is decent enough... it's slightly larger in scale than that of the first, but its uninspired filming costs a lot of intensity. There is more direct T&A in this installment, to appease the young males in the audience. Most of it is just there, for no actual reason, making it stand out embarrassingly. The dialog is poor, both as far as writing and delivery goes. The script has its share of clichés, but judging from the overall tone(and my experience with films that Roger Corman is involved in making), I would wager that it's fully intentional. All in all, an entertaining and fairly worthy followup to Black Scorpion. I recommend this to fans of the first and of comic book movies in general. I urge anyone to watch the first before trying their luck with this, though, and if you don't like what you see in that one, don't bother with this one. It's just more of the same. 5/10

As a one hour weekly TV played as straight as the movies or even more so. It's the kind of item for a Fox or Warners channel. I'd do it as a Buffy type adventure. A series of inter related plots. A set of cliff hangers.