Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Too much of everything

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I enjoyed this much more than anticipated, although there are plenty of plot flaws and the Maniac Cop is somewhat passive, leaving much of the killing to a serial killer whom he befriends for whatever reason. Some of the action scenes were great, as well as the climax. A typical B-Movie.

Picking up immediately where the events of the first film left us, Maniac Cop 2 is one of those rare examples of a sequel surpassing its predecessor in almost every way. Of course, this is hardly The Godfather Part II or Toy Story 2, but, with an increased budget and B-movie maestro Larry Cohen back on writing duties, director William Lustig pulls out all the stops to deliver a hugely entertaining, if formulaic, slasher follow-up. Jack (Bruce Campbell) and Teresa (Laurene Landon) are also back, although they don't last very long, as we are replayed the climax of Maniac Cop, where the seemingly bullet-proof psychopathic ex-cop Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) was last seen in the driver's seat of a van heading straight into the sea.Naturally, Cordell's body is nowhere to be found and he is soon spreading terror once again across New York City, gunning down an innocent convenience store clerk who was in the process of being robbed. Deputy Police Commissioner Edward Doyle (Michael Lerner) doesn't believe Jack and Teresa's wild claims of the disgraced and heavily-scarred former officer returning from the dead, until they are both brutally murdered and the body count starts to rise once again. Enter tough, chain-smoking detective Sean McKinney (Robert Davi), who is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation by Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) following the suspicious death of a criminal he was hunting. Meanwhile, serial killer Steven Turkell (Leo Rossi) is murdering strippers. His path soon crosses with the vengeful Cordell, and the two become unlikely roommates.Maniac Cop 2 offers little in the way of originality. If you've ever seen a slasher film, then you'll likely be able to guess most of what happens next in the story, although it does throw in the surprise of killing off its previous two main characters without batting an eyelid. What it does offer, however, is a number of memorable set-pieces, including a woman handcuffed to the wheel of a moving car whilst she is outside of it, and a pretty astonishing climax involving a prison rampage and a full body burn, which looks as though it must have been tricky to film. Larry Cohen also writes the characters with his trademark quirkiness, with Lerner in particular appearing to be having a blast, and Davi providing a more compelling leading man than Campbell. There is still no explanation to what exactly granted Cordell his superhuman powers, but we are given more insight into his background, despite his rather odd friendship with a scumbag you expect to see hacked apart within seconds of appearing on screen. Maniac Cop 2 offers way more than is expected of a sequel to an 80's slasher.

When another spate of violence against officers occurs, a detective ties them to a previous rampage committed by the undead Maniac Cop Matt Cordell attempting to continue his original quest for vengeance and recruits the two survivors to stop him.This one here is incredibly impressive and manages to have a lot of things going for it. The pacing to this one is really great as there's never any down-time at all, it keeps things moving forward smoothly and never really slows down anytime here. This is mainly due to the film's major plus and biggest selling point, the amount of high-end action scenes in here, and all of them are exciting and interesting. The car chase to this is excellent, with the disbelieving victims chased around by the villain and continually ramming the car into everything causing tons of damage as well being pretty thrilling, and then the second half where the one survivor finds themselves trapped to the speeding car on the outside and forced to steer the car while hanging onto the door away from speeding traffic and eventually forces an impressive stunt to close things off. The brawl in the strip-club that eventually goes up into the motel room is nice and hard-hitting, although these pale in comparison to the film's big two moments, the assault on the police station and the finale in the prison. The police station one is simply great, starting off in the shooting gallery where after shooting dead the oblivious ones doing shooting practice, makes his way out of the darkness, into the main room and just starts firing away, walking through glass partitions gunning down anything that moves and then resorting to hand-to-hand brawling as well when necessary. The prison scene is just amazing all around, from where one set on fire crashes through a wall and falls onto a bus parked below, falls through and goes up in flames when the bus explodes, to the way it brings everything around and finally the resolution of the gang and the explosive finale, it's all great and just ends this the right way. There's also the fact that the Maniac Cop keeps the same look and feel throughout as the scarred face, quiet demeanor and hulking appearance is kept and it makes the villain appear that much more menacing from the silent walks with the thunderous footfalls of the shoes to the scenes which show him to be invincible. Along with a really nice and impressive body count that's much more than expected and some nice nudity with all the strip-club sequences, this has a lot to really like about it. There's really only one flaw to this one, that the majority of the kills here tends to use gunshot or being set on fire as the manner of death, and using it for so many in the body count is a little disconcerting. Still, this was all-around a fun slasher.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity.

Maniac Cop 2 (1990) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Sequel to the 1988 cult film has the psychotic cop (Robert Z'Dar) back and this time he's killing any fellow officer that he can find. A detective (Robert Davi) knows who is doing the tricks and with the help of another officer (Claudia Christian) they try and track down the killer who is also working with a serial killer (Leo Rossi). In SCREAM 2 there was a long speech about everything a sequel had to do in order to measure up to that original film. Well, this is one example where everything in the sequel is bigger and better. This is a rather amazing little "B" movie that features just about everything you could fit into an 84-minute running time. We get some explosive action scenes, a great cast, great gore, non-stop violence and even a trip to a strip joint. There's certainly nothing CITIZEN KANE here but you can't help have fun with this thing that's all over the place in terms of craziness. Perhaps the best thing about the movie is its cast, which features some great "B" stars who turn in some wickedly entertaining performances. The rough looking Davi is playing the type of bad ass everyone loves him for. We have Z'Dar back as the killer cop and more physical and tougher than before. The supporting cast includes Bruce Campbell, Michael Lerner, Clarence Williams III and even Danny Trejo in a small role. Rossi does a nice job in the role of the serial killer but one only wishes Joe Spinnel, who was suppose to have played the part, had lived to do so. Lustig handles all the material extremely well and ends up delivering a nice little gem that fans of the genre or the first film are going to eat up. The highlight of the film has to be the ending where the cop goes back into the prison to take revenge on those who sliced him up. The added gore, violence and action makes this the best of the two films.