Leprechaun 2
2.5/4
Starring: Warwick Davis, Charlie Heath, Sandy Baron, Shevonne Durkin
Rated R for Violence, and for Nudity
Why can't I recommend "Leprechaun 2" despite experiencing a perverse enjoyment while watching it? I am tempted. Maybe because the acting is awful (save for two exceptions). Maybe because the plot is thin. Maybe because it's just plain dumb. I don't know.
"Leprechaun 2" is indeed a bad movie, but at least it has the good sense not to take itself seriously. There's plenty of humor in this movie, although only about half of which is intentional. Or intentionally unintentional. I enjoyed myself to an extent, but I'm ashamed to admit it. This is one of those movies that will get better if alcohol and friends with a sense of humor are involved.
Cody (Heath) is a dorky teenager who is dating the lovely Bridget (Durkin). But he screwed up on date night. It wasn't his fault, however, since his guardian Morty (Baron) got drunk instead of taking gullible tourists on a tour, which forced Cody to take over. His attempts to make it up to Bridget are hamstrung by the fact that an ancient leprechaun (Davis) is looking for a bride, and the descendant of the one who got away is Bridget. Now it's up to Cody to save her.
This isn't a good movie, but it's not as bad as you'd think. The script is more clever than it initially appears to be. Many of the Leprechaun's rhymes are wickedly clever, and there are a few surprises that I wasn't suspecting. Plus some of the acting is so bad that it has a campy charm.
The two leads don't impress. Charlie Heath is consistently wooden; I don't see an Oscar in his future. Or any gig outside of a soap opera, although I'm not sure he has the looks for it. His co-star Shevonne Durkin is even worse. She can't act to save her life. Almost everything she says sounds like an out-of-tune piano.
On the plus side there is Warwick Davis and Sandy Baron. Warwick Davis, reprising his role from the first film, is a lot of fun. He carries over the sadistic humor from the first film, but he has more support; the script gives him more lines and more things to do. Equally good is Sandy Baron, who will drink anything in sight and scam anyone he can. He's much more interesting than the two idiots we're supposed to root for.
What held up the original was that not only was it unbelievably dumb, badly acted and sloppily made, it tried to be a horror movie. It would take a much more gifted director than Mark Jones to make a leprechaun scary. Rodman Flender doesn't bother to try. He knows he's making a comedy, or at least a horror movie so silly that no one could possibly watch it for anything but camp value. So he plays up those aspects accordingly.
I can't sit here and tell you that it's a good movie. But I also can't tell you that it's a bad one. It falls into that murky, weird genre of "so bad it's good." This is tailor made for bad movie night.
Starring: Warwick Davis, Charlie Heath, Sandy Baron, Shevonne Durkin
Rated R for Violence, and for Nudity
Why can't I recommend "Leprechaun 2" despite experiencing a perverse enjoyment while watching it? I am tempted. Maybe because the acting is awful (save for two exceptions). Maybe because the plot is thin. Maybe because it's just plain dumb. I don't know.
"Leprechaun 2" is indeed a bad movie, but at least it has the good sense not to take itself seriously. There's plenty of humor in this movie, although only about half of which is intentional. Or intentionally unintentional. I enjoyed myself to an extent, but I'm ashamed to admit it. This is one of those movies that will get better if alcohol and friends with a sense of humor are involved.
Cody (Heath) is a dorky teenager who is dating the lovely Bridget (Durkin). But he screwed up on date night. It wasn't his fault, however, since his guardian Morty (Baron) got drunk instead of taking gullible tourists on a tour, which forced Cody to take over. His attempts to make it up to Bridget are hamstrung by the fact that an ancient leprechaun (Davis) is looking for a bride, and the descendant of the one who got away is Bridget. Now it's up to Cody to save her.
This isn't a good movie, but it's not as bad as you'd think. The script is more clever than it initially appears to be. Many of the Leprechaun's rhymes are wickedly clever, and there are a few surprises that I wasn't suspecting. Plus some of the acting is so bad that it has a campy charm.
The two leads don't impress. Charlie Heath is consistently wooden; I don't see an Oscar in his future. Or any gig outside of a soap opera, although I'm not sure he has the looks for it. His co-star Shevonne Durkin is even worse. She can't act to save her life. Almost everything she says sounds like an out-of-tune piano.
On the plus side there is Warwick Davis and Sandy Baron. Warwick Davis, reprising his role from the first film, is a lot of fun. He carries over the sadistic humor from the first film, but he has more support; the script gives him more lines and more things to do. Equally good is Sandy Baron, who will drink anything in sight and scam anyone he can. He's much more interesting than the two idiots we're supposed to root for.
What held up the original was that not only was it unbelievably dumb, badly acted and sloppily made, it tried to be a horror movie. It would take a much more gifted director than Mark Jones to make a leprechaun scary. Rodman Flender doesn't bother to try. He knows he's making a comedy, or at least a horror movie so silly that no one could possibly watch it for anything but camp value. So he plays up those aspects accordingly.
I can't sit here and tell you that it's a good movie. But I also can't tell you that it's a bad one. It falls into that murky, weird genre of "so bad it's good." This is tailor made for bad movie night.
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