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I have all the respect in the world for John Boorman--his 'Point Blank' and 'Deliverance' are excellent--but this sequel to one of the greatest horror movies ever made simply falls listless and flat. Of course, the script is extremely talky and lifeless--as if it had been 'exorcised' of all the wonder and shock that William Friedkin's vision of the battle of good vs. evil would entail. Yes, Sir Richard Burton was a great actor--yet when shoehorned with a crappy script and with his more irritating peccadilloes left unrestrained, he can be such a chore and bore to watch. Though I have not seen the two more recent 'prequels' for the 'Exorcist' franchise, I can safely say that while 'Exorcist II' is not the worst horror movie ever made (that, by the way, never seemed its intention), it's certainly the worst of the original trilogy--and by a country mile. This is a work that would probably bore the demons so much, they would decide to get out of Regan MacNeil's body, and perhaps even leave Earth's plane altogether, never even wanting a return ticket.

Basically 'Errol Flynn vs. the Nazis, Round 1' Battleground: Germany

This experience was hampered for me by a freak situation in which either my flatscreen TV or my blu player, for the first time, didn't have any audio, so, nonplussed yet equally dauntless, I just said 'what the hell', put on the subtitles and watched the film with no audio. (Later, I discovered that I could have just unplugged both for ten minutes and everything would have been normal. You live, you learn. It taught me to pay more attention to what was happening on the screen, so it wasn't an entirely wasted endeavor.)

Here, the weakness, as always, was Ronald Reagan, who makes Keanu Reeves look like a great actor. Still, he wasn't bad (it was a war film, after all, with a role he was born to play), and he and Flynn were assisted by great supporting players, such as Raymond Massey and Alan Hale, who are always 'cash money' for me IMHO. As well, you have one of the greatest American directors of the period in Raoul Walsh, so it's basically win, win, win--except if you're a Nazi.

Basically 'Errol Flynn vs. the Nazis, Round 3' Battleground: Canada

Being myself a Canadian, I was thrilled to find in my 'TCM Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventures' (five films made during WWII in which Errol Flynn battles the Nazis) a film helmed by one of my favourite American directors of the period, in Raoul Walsh, with Flynn starring as a RCMP officer (typically called 'Mountie') making sure the Nazis can't succeed in their quest to sneak into Canada and, there, create another front in their quest to bring hell on Earth. As a child, I loved his rendition of one of my very favourite heroes (Robin Hood), and lately I quite enjoyed seeing the ill-starred (dying at 50--again in Canada--from a heart attack brought on by chronic alcoholism) native Australian who was perhaps the second-most alluring male thespian of all-time, behind the equally ill-fated Rudolph Valentino, in an audacious TCM 4-pack of outstanding adventure movies, such as 'Captain Blood' and 'The Sea Hawk', and an equally intriguing 4-pack of Westerns he made as his star began to wane.

This doesn't disappoint, as Walsh directs, just like he always does, with an appealing eye and a talent for setting up suspense and excitement. Highly recommended to either fans of Flynn, war films or of cinema from the period.