When it came time to make a sequel to David Cronenberg's 1986 horror/sci-fi classic The Fly, Cronenberg was nowhere in sight and instead, one of the special effects technicians from the first film, Chris Walas, was brought on board to direct the second movie, based on a screenplay by Mick Garris. The results? Decidedly mixed.

Eric Stoltz is Martin Brundle, the son of the late Seth Brundle (Goldblum's character from the first film) who, at the tender age of five years old, is a full grown man thanks for his freaky fly genes. Martin has spent his five years on this earth under the watchful eye of Bartok Industries (lead by Anton Bartok, played here by Lee Richardson), a sinister and clandestine corporation who intend to use Martin's DNA to build an army of superfly soldiers.

As if his DNA weren't enough, Bartok has also got Marin carrying on perfecting his father's teleportation experiments. It seems that not only has Martin's body developed very fast, but his mind has as well and he is, even at this young an age, quite a genius. One night, while buried deep in the confines of the laboratory, Martin meets a Bartok employee named Beth (Daphne Zuniga) and, not quite in touch with his hormones, falls head over heels in love with her. This change is not unexpected, given the way he has developed, but what is unexpected, at least from Martin's perspective, is that not only has he started to get manly urges when he looks at Beth, but he's also started to morph into the creature that his father eventually became. That's right, Martin is turning into… The Fly! While Martin and Beth be able to find a way to reverse the process and save Martin from a life of eating poop and flying around garbage cans or will he soon start vomiting on people and trying to eat them?

All in all, this is pretty goofy stuff. The idea of having Seth Brundle's son born into a life of unwitting corporate slavery is an interesting premise that unfortunately the filmmaker's really go nowhere with. Add to that the sad fact that Stoltz's performance doesn't come anywhere near the level fo manic intensity that Goldblum had when he played the lead and you've got a very strong recipe for mediocrity. The film does have one saving grace, however – lots of yucky effects. From the opening scene in which we witness the miracle of fly birth to the finale when a fully crazed Martinfly is running around Bartok Industries messing everything up and going loopy, Walas and company aren't afraid to go for the gore.

The problem with the story is that it's just plain predictable. When those stand out shocking moments occurred in the first movie they came at you out of left field and though they made perfect sense in the context of the story being told, you don't really see them coming. This time out, it's the exact opposite. Though Walas directs with much technical proficiency, the movie lacks the soul and the human-interest story that made the first movie such a raging success in the first place. The relationship that develops between Martin and Beth lacks the passion that Goldblum and Davis brought to the screen and instead plays out as more of a goofy soap opera than a tragic and damned love story. The end result? The only character you feel any sympathy for in this one is the dog.

With that in mind, if you don't necessarily need a good story to enjoy a film and aren't obsessed with harping on the movie that could have been under different circumstances as I tend to be at times, The Fly II does manage to be entertaining. The few stand out effects sequences are quite good and plenty gross and even if Stoltz has all the enthusiasm of a piece of driftwood, once he's made up as the monster the movie is at least interesting to look at. Go into this one expecting to be entertained and you probably will be, but go in expecting a great or even really good film like you got with the Cronenberg movie and you shall be sorely disappointed indeed…

The DVD

Video:

The 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that Fox has whipped up for this release is very nice indeed. The film has always looked a little dark in spots but that was on purpose and thankfully, that darkness is well preserved on this new DVD. Light scenes show excellent color reproduction while black levels are strong and deep throughout. The level of both foreground and background detail in the widescreen image is exceptional and there are only trace amounts of edge enhancement and line shimmering present. Mpeg compression artifacts are never a problem, and overall things look very nice. There are really minute trace amounts of print damage here and there that show up in the form of the odd speck of dirt or dust but these don't reveal themselves often enough to be a serious concern. Contrast levels are also dead on. Fans should be impressed with how the film has been treated here – it looks fantastic even if overall there is a little bit of softness to a couple of scenes (likely due to the source material rather than to the transfer itself).