I went to see Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day last night. I am a huge fan of Boondock Saints. The great plot, amazing cinematography, and fantastic acting are only a few things that make it such a fantastic film….and that were sadly lacking in the sequel.
Alright, so I have never really wanted a part two to the story. It was fine on its’ own, and the chances that they would be able to capture the brilliance of the first was unlikely.
But even going into the theater convinced it would be bad did not prepare me for the level of bad that it actually was. It was so bad that I am actually wondering if the entire thing was meant as an exercise in irony.
The first thing is it relied on a great deal of special effects, which were missing in the low budget first film. It was like they took the finer points of Boondock Saints, threw in a couple of fight scenes from The Matrix, and tried to make it funny.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the scenes made it close, but ended up missing the mark. They were overdone, there was very little plot, and the whole story was poorly explained.
Not only that, but they had a large cast of great actors (Billy Connolly, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, Julie Benz), and some familiar and beloved faces from the first (David Della Rocco, Bob Marley, Brian Mahoney), but they seemed to have all been told to overact in the most outrageously bad fake accents that could be done.
By the end of the movie I was thinking that I was just glad that it was over, and that a sequel was done and no more would follow…until it showed clearly that they left it open for a Boondock Saints III. This time, though, it will probably be based on a massive ‘organization’, of which the plot of the first and second left no hints leading up to it.
In the end, if you are looking for tons of special effects, bad acting, and mindless violence and catchphrases, this is the film for you.
However, if you are going because you love Boondock Saints, and you aren’t a 15-year-old boy, I would suggest staying at home and watching the original. But that is just this gossip blogger’s 2 cents.
