September 23, 2025 • 58 mins
DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Darkman II : The Return Of Durant" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : happinessindarknesshow@gmail.com . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Years ago, one man's work, one man's identity, one man's
life was destroyed. He's coming back now. A face from
his past has returned with a vengeance.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We are going back into the arms business.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I want to say, Durad dead.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
He took my face, my hands, he took my life.
You will kill again, and you will keep on killing
until someone stops him. And that someone is going to.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Be me this time. You are so predictable. Their deadly
conflict will end once and for all. I want to
see the freak suffered dark Man to the return of
Durant Larry Drake, Kinder Lady and Arnold Vosslou as dark
(01:05):
Man on video cassette of July eleventh, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Show people, and welcome to our three hundred and tenth
episode of Happiness in Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast, where
we discuss superhero movies, the Marble DC, dark Horse Image
and beyond. Naturally, there will be spoilers, folks, so you
have been warned. I'm one of your co hosts, de
Janick and is always joining me as my superhero partner
in crime, mister Keith for this. Hey Keith, how are
(01:35):
you today?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh? You know, I can't complain too much. It's actually
nice here in North Carolina for once. It's not raining,
it's not snowing. My yard doesn't look like the Jungles invading.
So I mean, all things be considered, it could be worse,
it could be better. I mean a post of this
movie which is just interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Very well said, because yes, it is very going to
be an interesting one because the day we are discussing
a movie that neither of us had ever seen, dark
Man Too, The Return of Durant from ninety five. This
was directed by Bradford May. The story was by Robert
Eisley and Lawrence Hurtzog, while the screenplay was by Stephen McKay.
The score was by Randy Miller was bringing back that
(02:15):
wonderful Danny Elfman score from the first movie Funny Story.
It was screened at an AMC Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
before heading to home video release, and because apparently they
kind of checked it out, they watched it like they
weren't particularly happy with what was on screen. Apparently these
special effects weren't up to scratch, and so they were like,
(02:35):
this is going direct to video, and that's what it did.
So what we do though, is it had a budget
added for just for inflation, of eleven million dollars. So
getting to first impressions here, Keith, you know you didn't
get the chance to discuss the first dark Man movie,
so going from I'm assumed you'd seen the first one,
So going from that, what did you make of this sequel?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Uh? Yeah, I actually owned the dark Man comic book
from way back when in nineteen ninety. I think it's
like three or four whenever it came out. I am
a fan of the original. I somehow skipped this one
and went straight to three or that are I just
mentally blocked it out because while it's not a terrible movie,
it's just not good. There are a lot of gaping
(03:20):
plot holes and just a lot of jump to conclusions
or just kind of lack of any kind of common
sense whatsoever in this movie, with the number of people
who die from the dumbest ways possible. But I get it.
It's a product of its time. You know, they were
trying to do like a superhero ish franchise, but it
(03:40):
just if they were to redo it now, I think
they could do a better job, especially thinking some of
these gaps for shortcomings, just for no other reason. The
shocking level or lack of common sense in this movie
is just astounding. Like they blow stuff up and you
never see cops, or somebody gets murdered and you're like,
(04:01):
that's fine, and then just keep going. You're like, what
is happening here? Like even crappy cops in some of
these movies would still do a basic job of like
let's go see what's going on. Nope, none of that.
They just skate over all the important details and just
go straight for action, which I get based on the
budget of eleven million dollars, you can tell where they
(04:23):
spent this money. It clearly was not on the props
or makeup well, I guess prosthetics, yes, but some of
the special effects were definitely a product of their time.
So it's a fun watch, But you know, I'm not expecting,
you know, high hopes from this one.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Because I sort of wondered, because this is literally an
original Sam Raimi creation. When then and then of course
the it went to comics, like you mentioned, and so
I wondered why Sam abandoned this franchise. Maybe to him
it was just I'll do it one and done. I'll
leave the franchise open if somebody wants to pick it
up eventually. But as we know, he directed the first one,
(05:00):
which was I wouldn't say groundbreaking, but it was kind
of cool that somebody literally created a superhero from screen,
you know, on screen. It wasn't inspired by a comic book.
This was literally, you know, Sam's brainchild. When the first
dark Man grace the screen, I was so I was
really curious about this because I, like you, I really
enjoyed the first one, as wacky as it was, and
(05:21):
it very much is a Sam Raimi film here, I
think we get some of that atmosphere recaptured from the
first one. However that I think the big problem with
this is even the story. For the most part. Yes,
it's incredibly insane in the very heightened reality, and I
was there actually few things I probably want to ask
you about because I'm not not being American and not
living in the States, either in the nineties or now,
(05:44):
you know, thirty years on. I was like, these things
even happen, Like you know, people randomly coming out of
a hotel pulling out a gun and shooting randomly. I mean,
I know that. Unfortunately, there is a firearms problem in
the US, and obviously don't want to go down that
rabbit hole necessarily, but I was like, people just randomly
pulling out guns and nobody's doing anything. So I thought
(06:05):
it was that was kind of crazy, But it's the nineties.
It's that kind of period of action films where everybody's
packing and doing all sorts of crazy things. What really
got to me and you and I have actually talked
about this when it comes to certain movies, I think,
especially of this era, but even further on, the ADR
was really really bad. I mean there were some moments
where you could literally tell that people were in the
(06:27):
booth reading their lines. And I think we will actually
address this when we get to the characters that we
were talking about today, because there are quite a few characters,
but they don't really get much to do other than
you know, because today spoilers, folks are gonna be talking
the course about our protagonists and our villain because all
the other in between ers don't really get that much.
I think there were a lot of undeveloped, untapped potential
(06:49):
when it came to certain characters that we got here.
They either die or they just disappear, So I was like,
maybe there's not really much point in talking about I'm
sure we can mention them during the course of this review,
and we probably will. But what really got to me
was the adr and when it came to just certain scenes,
I'm like, I can see where this became a thing
(07:11):
and why people stopped doing it. For example, our hero
on his news going no in the most unconvincing way possible.
But other than that, I'm glad we got another dark
Man film, and we had got a third one. I
do hope that at some point somebody picks this up again,
because the concept is really cool and I really like it,
so I hope maybe I think it would make for it,
(07:33):
you know, and something else we've often said, I think
this would make a great TV show. I think if
somebody decided to pick it up and go really dark,
literally no pun intent, I think it would really be
would it would make for a rather compelling TV show?
So hopefully made somebody's listening. It has happened before that
we're on this podcast, we've said things, and then next
day we find out there's news that, oh, a dark
Man show is in production. Okay, So I enjoyed my
(07:57):
time with this but yes, it's a very problematic film,
and I can see why the ultimate decision was made
of we're not going to show this in theaters, We're
just going to go direct the home video, and I
can see why there is very much a home video
quality to it. Seeing also, I guess the budget at
the time.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So I guess.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Then getting to our characters on the board, let's kick
off with our titular character. We have my fellow South
Africa and Arnold Bosloo as Doctor Peyton Westlake dark Man,
so Keith. You know, we had seen, of course Liam
Neeson play this character and was a ground a breaking
role for him. What did you make of this version
of our good doctor?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
He was interesting. He definitely was in the same or
similar vein as Liam Neeson, so wasn't too big of
a stretch in terms of actors in their styles, which
I appreciate because you and I both know and I
won't mention any names the Crow where they recast the
lead character and they are just so jarringly different that
it actually takes away from the movie. Here at least
(08:57):
it kind of hit the same beats with him, and
I can appreciate that. That being said, there was just
so many jumps in logic. It was amazing. I thought
he was playing hopscotch because he steals money from drug dealers,
which he needed to finance his science somehow, so I
get that. But then he's got this crazy like underground
(09:20):
lab with this AI driven train and computer and all
this crazy technology that we're just not going to talk about.
It's just it's there. Be cool, don't worry about it.
And it's just one of those things. It's so distracting
because yes, we know from the first one that he
does take his lab with him and go and start
(09:42):
doing these experiments to fix his rubber face and whatnot.
And they just continued on that, and you don't see
any of this growth or this potential, you know, him
building this hideout because it's effectively the batcave, and you
just don't see any of that. And then we're just
like and it jumps around. It's very haphazard in terms
of what his character's doing and what's going on. You
(10:07):
see him one scene he's working underground in his lab,
and then the next scene he's at the post office
and he sticks out like a sore thumb because he
has his face wrapped in all of these bandages and whatnot,
and you'd imagine that at this point in time, you
would have developed some sort of makeup cover or something
else to kind of hide that a little bit so
(10:28):
he didn't stick out like a sore thumb. Nope, he's
just gonna run around with the bandage on his face
the entire movie, like The Phantom of the Opera, and
we're just be like, all right, cool, no big deal.
And you see him interact with the little kids and
they're like, thanks, mister, instead of screaming in terror like
most small children would have done when you see mister
two face or you know, whatever pizza face you want
(10:51):
to call him, one hundred percent kids would have gone
running for the hills after they saw that. But you know,
it is what it is, and we're just gonna again things.
We're gonna skip over. What I do appreciate about this character,
and they continued on from the first movie is him
learning the mimic skills of other people. He's going to impersonate,
(11:11):
Like he scans the picture of one of the bad
guys and he's sitting there practicing the voice, practicing the voice.
And we did see him do this in the first
one as well, but I appreciate that they continue it
and they show how he's gotten better at it, and
you see that that growth you're okay with, but like
everything else, you're like, man, that's fine whatever. The one
thing I found annoying is when he has those psychotic
(11:35):
snaps and he just starts like frothing at the mouth,
and it does that weird like he's in his head
going through all these crazy scenes and like the atom
bomb blows up and just blood rushing. I'm like, are
you having a stroke? Sir? Are you okay? And then
he goes into like this rage filled like incredible hulk
monster thing, and you're like, oh, okay, this is you
psyching yourself up, apparently, And it worked the first time,
(12:00):
but it got distracting, and we saw it in the
original movie as well, so it's not like this is
something they introduced here. But it's one of those things
they could have scaled down. They could have just like
had something like whatever in like a little bomb or
a light or something in his eyes, or a quick
cut screen, not that jarring Caesar inducing screens that we
got the two or three times in the movie. I know,
(12:24):
I get it. It's petty and minor, but it's kind
of the biggest selling point of it. Like when he snaps,
he literally, you know, becomes this rage berserk monster, and
they just they could have done it better justice, Like
you see the Hulk, he hulks out, his eyes turned
green and then he turns into monster. This dude looks
like he's having a seizure. I appreciate they didn't rehash
(12:46):
a lot of this stuff from the first movie, like oh,
why you like this because he does meet new people
in this movie, but none of them are like even
the news reporters like oh hey, doctor so and so,
not like holy shit, what the hell happened to your faith?
None of that, Like she's just okay, friend, it took me,
like you know, however, many days, weeks, hours to find you,
(13:07):
and I found you based on a glass that had
no fingerprints, which literally made no sense. After she said that,
she's like, I found you based on this cup but
it had no fingerprints, Then how did you find him
if it has no fingerprints? Because this was just Yeah,
she's a spectacular reporter.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Again, that's one other one of those like you know,
you were just gonna glaze over that one, or when
she does the big reveal about the Big Bad being
alive and she just gets into her car and just
drives away. You're telling me dark man who's dealt with
his shenanigans in the first movie and a reporter who
just reported on the Kingpin of New York does not
(13:49):
check her car to see if there's a bomb, because,
as he said, Durant is a sketchy guy and he's
going to come after you. He says that and then
immediately walks away from the car and it blows up.
I'm like, are you serious? Like what in the actual heck?
And yes, I actually used a different vernacular, but you
(14:10):
know their kids, and I'm just like I visibly groaned
at that. I'm like, are you really serious? And then
he then like it faces him for I don't know,
maybe like twenty minutes, and then he just moves on,
and I get it. They severed his nerve endings and
(14:30):
he's kind of separated from reality, but he's not dead inside.
He should still be like, oh damn, I kind of
did this. He's like, nope, fuck it, let's go like
all right, continue on, and then it just kind of
spirals from there. And I realized at that point or
a little after that, the movie was starting to catch
up with itself, and I'm like, all right, running out
of time. So here comes the dumb stuff like where
(14:53):
he beats up the the Russian or ex Russian KGB
guy and just handcustomed to a car, Like let's not
tie him up or anything, like make sure he's secure now,
we'll just crack him in the head and hope for
the best. Like, really, we're gonna do this, all right,
he should be able to break out, and like, I
don't know, twenty minutes and he does. He literally breaks out,
(15:13):
and I'm like, if you just use more rope, none
of this would have happened. But you know again, it
turned into a very slappy writing toward the end, and
I get it. They were trying to tie the loose
ends up and finish the movie. Like if dark Man
had just made himself a weapon and shot Durant, none
of this would have happened the first time he saw him,
(15:36):
or the second or the third. You're sensing a trend here, right,
So it's just like little things that he could have
done to end this movie so much sooner. And we're
like let's see where this goes, and they just ran
with it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I think so too. Now you have to help me
understand Darkman's so called powers in this film, as in,
so technically he can't feel pain, is what I'm assuming.
He's a disguise, but he doesn't really have any Like
does he have superhuman strength? I don't think so does he?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
He has heightened strength because he has lost the ability
to control his adrenaline. That's what you're seeing when he
does that, those crazy little cut screens and the flashes
and the screaming and the weirdness that is his adrenaline
shooting through the roof. And that's why he is stronger
and able to pick up like the manhole cover in
the beginning. He's able to do that because he always
(16:28):
has a heightened level adrenaline going through his systems. It's
also supposed to help his healing factor, but I don't
understand how that one's gonna work. So it's heightened senses,
high intellect, the mimic ability, and no pain, which you
would think would actually be a detriment because you'd walk
(16:49):
into shit all the time, but it doesn't happen apparently.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I think the comparison that you made to Batman is
probably the best one because that's the exactly it. Because
I guess if you do shoot him, dark Man can die,
even though it doesn't feel the pain. That's why he's
always running away from halo of bullets and such and
users like you said, said manhole cover as a shield
when the guy's literally emptying his chamber into it with
his machine gun. So that was I was trying to
(17:16):
figure out. It's like, okay, so I guess it's more
like Batman as him being a master of disguise and
being probably agile and doing all these other things. So
he's very much a an average joe who has these
extra abilities of that heightened adrenaline and no nerve endings.
When it came to the thing that really bothered me
about this is you know you mentioned this towards the end.
(17:38):
Does he have everybody's masks stashed away somewhere? Because he
keeps changing faces every five minutes, So it's because you know,
BERSI appears as one henchman, then the other and the other.
Like I guess he stashed them away somewhere because you
don't see him walking around with a little case or
anything unless they're within the infinite recesses of his robe.
(17:59):
I don't know the way he pulls these masks out,
but I'm like, Okay, it's a crazy movie. I'll take it.
Because one minute he's the Also, the time he takes
to apply these masks takes like two seconds for him.
He's like bro evidently because we don't see him putting
them on while he's in you know, the heat of battle.
So that was something that kind of was kind of
scratching my head about. Well, what I did, Like, like
(18:21):
you said, I think they tried to retain what the
original character was, like you know, the the Amnissan version
of this and you know the sam Raimi version of this.
I think they tried to stay true to the spirit.
But yes, there were just some things that were way
too ridiculous. I mean also when we talk about our villain,
there are a couple of things that I just don't
understand either for example, but my also my my big
(18:42):
question about this is what is Peyton's mission statement? Is
it just that he wants to make it, wants to
perfect this technique of this fabric, you know, what to create,
you know, the perfect mask that he can apply for
a longer period of time. Is this just pure vanity
or because he's a scientist, is he hoping some day
to pattern this or all share it with the world
(19:05):
for folks who have been disfigured and can you know,
literally have their face recreated. That's what I'm hoping. We
never sort of really unders get this because it seems
like before Peyton meets doctor Brinkman, it seems like he's
just desperate to get his face back. I understand that
we're like, this is supposed to be like a superhero.
It should he be so conscious about his looks that much?
(19:29):
That's what something that that was kind of in my head.
I'm like, I guess it's just that he can't better
look at himself in the mirror, or and he just
wants to be himself. So it could be just a
fact of he doesn't feel whole, and so if he
has his face staring back at him, he feels whole.
I don't know, because, as I said, we don't really
get a mission stated from him, like I've been researching
for years so I can help people like me. You
(19:52):
never hear him say this. We see him do the
vigilante thing by night apparently saving people, and he hears
a scream and so he rushes off and to see
what he can do. So he's trying to do good.
But outside that, you know, he's using all this money
to fund his research. So my thought was, is he
being incredibly selfish and just wanted to do for him
(20:12):
and just because he is so obsessed with his looks
because he used to be this handsome, dashing doctor and
now is no longer and that was all his whole
identity or data. ALI is like, this worked for me.
I can then share it with other people. As I said,
I hope that's the case, but it's never really explained.
But on that I think Arnold did a good job
(20:33):
playing the character and he was he was I think
had it was charismatic enough and did what he had
to do. But for the most part it was just
as someone landing his mission statement, which I didn't understand.
And secondly, those some of the adr like you know
when when doctor Brinkman dies, he goes no, and it's
(20:54):
so it's so underwhelming. I'm like, this does not sound
like a guy stricken by Greek. It really sounds like
he's in his booth, really going oh, I have to
do this. No, So I'm like that that just really
kind of threw me out the movie. But I suppose
sometimes that's what happens, and you know, thirty years later, Yeah,
(21:15):
the film has not aged particularly one when it comes
to the effects and such. But I mean the character
of dark Man, I think once again, being your average
Joe can still work today. I think that does stick.
So before we do move on here, Keith, I, in fact,
I would love to pick your brain on this. Do
you think it's a it's a fact that Peyton is
just it's all about vanity, or that he is hoping
(21:35):
to create something that will help mankind.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
I think it might be a little of both. And
it's not vanity, how you think it's more of In
the first one, he was trying to literally do this
to help the betterment of mankind because of the burns
and you know, generally horrific. But then he himself gets
inflicted with his horrific scars, and you know, he's disfigured
(22:04):
and he's he's lost the love of his life because
of everything that Durant has done to him. So him
perfecting the skin and him getting his face back would
provide him with a certain level of normalcy that he
doesn't have, and will also help him potentially regain some
handle on a sanity because he tends to fly off
(22:26):
the handle on the minorst of things because again he
has this rage in his system because of the heightened adrenaline.
So I think it's kind of it's a twofold. It's
not true vanity, like he thinks he's ugly, but I
think it's more of a type of a sanity thing,
just like we've seen in characters like the two Face
(22:48):
in Batman with Harvey Dent. It's he's trying to quote
unquote hide or fix the ugly side of him, his monster.
So it will again give him some some of sanity potentially.
You know, we could also be reading into this so
much more than it really is, but that's my take
on it. Is him continuing this research is because he
(23:12):
wants to eventually, like you said, come out and be like, hey,
I have this amazing fix all product. And also to
fix his horridic I can't I just made up a
word there, his horrific disfigurement. So that to fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
And also to your point, I mean, thank you for
that yeah, And I think you make a great point.
It could just be to be able to cling on
to the last remnants of sanity that he does have,
because we do even see him these moments of almost insanity.
Wasshe cackling madly as he's creating these pills that he
thinks will be able to give Durant to kill him,
who is like doing mad signing. Ah A, you enjoy these,
(23:51):
won't you? And were like, wow, okay, dude, So I
guess that's how far gone Peyton actually is, where he
just tackles with glee doing these kind of things. And also,
like you said to you, the fact that he's so
out in the open. You wouldn't expect this of dark Man,
at least from the one that we'd seen, the first one,
where he is he always hides in the shadows. He
(24:12):
makes sure not to be seen. Yet he he's out
there in broad daylight checking his mailbox like it's nothing.
So it's almost defeating the purpose of being a master
of disguise doing that. It's like you'd think he'd be
wearing his skin, you know, the patent mask when he's
doing this, because anyway, you just have to rush in, rush,
(24:33):
out because obviously you're on the you're on the clock
when you're wearing that, that the mask, because obviously at
some point just dissolves. But uh, I did find that
a little bit odd that dark Man is now literally
walking around by day as dark Man. But uh, and
the kids, like you said, just taking as like matter
of fact and oh, thank you mister, enough they go.
So that was something else that I was a little
(24:54):
bit sort of curious about. But uh, but you know,
thank you for that explanation. I think that's that's probably
I mean, like you said, we might be reading too
much into it. I think that'll probably it is that
it is trying to keep a handle on whatever little
sanity Peyton has left. So before we actually do get
to our villain, because I think we brought it up
and I know they don't really get much to do,
(25:16):
but I would like your thoughts on these I wanted
to take a quick look at our two you know,
more prominent female characters in this, so I e who
we mentioned earlier, Kim Delaney as Jill Randall and Renee
O'Connor as Laurie Brinkman. So when it came to these two,
did you have any thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Them, Well, when you have a reporter, and this is
very much a product of its time. As we've said before,
she's trying to break out of this mold, and she's
in an environment where most of the men around her
are very misogynistic, and especially the report that he gives her,
you know, a real orgasm or fake orgasms? Like are
(25:57):
you serious? Like I didn't somehow again I've blacked out
this entire movie. But the fact is that, you know,
she's like, can I get a real you know anything?
And he's like, just do that, sweetheart, and it's like
again another scene in the movie. I'm like, oh god,
this is terrible. But she does break the story about
Durant and then again this you know sleuth. You know,
(26:21):
I'm gonna say sleuth detective news reporter. She knows who
he is, she's familiar with all the crazy stuff that
he's done, does the report, and then again proceeds to
talk to Peyton and be like, good job, I like
this face better and then just gets in her car
and blows up, and as you said, he turns into
Darth Vader. And then but like, are you again if
(26:46):
you're this type of reporter? And you're familiar with these individuals.
The first thing I'd be doing is checking the car.
She does none of that. She just assumes nothing has
happened in the however long period of time from when
the news report was on the air to when she left,
which I don't know. It seemed like it was like
two minutes, which is amazing travel because you're telling me
(27:08):
they just happened to have blocks of C four sitting
around the house, like just in case they need to
blow a car up. I mean it's possible. I don't know.
They could know a dude and just call and be like, hey, Joe,
go rig so and so's car to blow up, and
he just he's often doing it. But you don't see
that scene, so you have no idea how that car
got rigged to blow up. And then again, dark man
(27:29):
is standing right there and he's just like he's a
shady guy. Watch yourself, okay, And this turns around and
walks off, and you're like, I do appreciate the fact
that while there was a little flirting, it wasn't the
obnoxious love interest flirting shenanigans. It was just female character.
You could see there was a little you know, spark
(27:50):
of whatever, and then obviously she gets taken out. But
I'm glad they didn't force love interests in this movie
like they do on so many others, even though technically
what's her face? She does become like a pseudo love
interest because Durant holds her hostage. But Laurie, Laurie, thank you,
(28:12):
I blanked on her name. Yea, Laurie is kind of
a love interest ish, but not really. It's just they
had a couple of This is where it kind of
like they dropped the ball. They had a couple interactions
and yes, dark Man was looking out for her, but
not in the love interest kind of way, just the
your brother was killed, I'm trying to protect you from
(28:33):
Durant kind of way. So it's like big sister or sorry,
little sister, big brother kind of vibe, not love interest
kind of vibe, which is what they might have been
going with with Laurie. And what gets me is they
just don't explain any of her backstory, at least with
you know, Jill. You know she's a reporter, she's being
(28:53):
treated like crap at her day job. You're like, okay, fine, Laurie.
You see her for two minutes talking to her brother.
And then the next time you see her, she's at
a gentleman's club. Okay, Like, we're just not gonna talk
about this one, Like how has she been here the club?
All right? Like is she in charge of the club?
(29:15):
Is she like a bartender? What does she do there?
She is clearly the most dressed out of everybody there,
so I assume she's a manager. But again, we're not
going to talk about this. You have it's literally one
extreme to the other. And what I appreciate about appreciate
about dark Man is he's there for like a single task.
(29:36):
He doesn't get distracted, even when a girl comes up
to him with the handcuffs and she makes a comment
and he jokes back to her and then handcuffs her
to the the bar and just keeps walking. He gets
distracted for a split second, but then turns and continues
on talking to her or finding her then going to
talk to her and giving her a heart to heart.
And what gets me is she's again another character, and
(29:57):
a lot of these characters are very just naive to
the world. When he's like, Durant did this. You're in
this guy, you know, the crime boss that literally everybody
in the city knows about killed your brother. And she's like,
who's Durant? Like what you like work in the adult
industry in New York, you know in the city, like
everybody knows everybody Like this is just literally made no
(30:19):
sense whatsoever. And even when he warns her and she
still goes about selling this building, she meets him and
she's like, wait, Durant, wait, your Durant, wait, like you
see the little real spinning in her brain, like holy shit,
he wasn't lying, Like I was like, are you serious?
(30:43):
And again this is just lazy character development and you're
just like, well, okay, And then she tries to back
out of it when she's surrounded by a bunch of
burly guys and she's like, you know what, maybe I'm
not going to sign this paperwork. I have to use
the bathroom. And then Durant's like, okay, it's down the
hall to the left, Like dude, seriously, like you should
(31:06):
have should have had one of your hench people, preferably
not dark Man, but you didn't know who that was
at the time walk her to the restroom. Nope, we're
just gonna let her walk out. And then she runs
for a taxi, which New York City at that time,
you know, during the nineties had horrific traffic. It still does.
She would have been better off just running away on
foot and calling it a day, But you know, that's
(31:29):
a rent for a different day. I just both of
them were frustrating in different ways. And I don't know
if it's more so because we have seen so many
movies since this has come out with significantly better female
character development that when you go back to these movies
from the nineties, you just want to, you know, shake
(31:52):
somebody because it makes your brain hurt.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I definitely agree. You know, if our mutual friend Zan
Sprang Else were here, she would reiterate the concept that
she has brought numerous times on gold Stand on other podcasts,
where a lot of times men don't know how to
write female characters and very you know these days they
you know, we've gotten better at it. I speak for
(32:16):
the male race, all men. I speak trying to speak
for all men here, trying to be the mouthpiece for
all men, that we have gotten better. You have found
we have come across better male writers who know how
to write women. Here, clearly, I think, you know, not
being a woman myself. But I think, yeah, our our
writers did not really know how to write women because
both Jill and Laurie are done incredibly dirty. I mean,
(32:41):
like you said, we could have had the very simplistic,
very fascile love interest between sort of love going on
between Jill and Peyton. It could have been almost like
a Beauty and the Beast kind of situation because of course,
you know, let's be honest, of course, Jee is an
incredibly good looking woman and and you know he is,
you know, all tired with his bandages and disfigured, so
(33:02):
they could have done almost Phantom of the Opera thing
once again, like you know, she was like the Christine
to his Phantom. But at the same time she gets
done in craibly dirty because she's this incredibly clever, ingenious,
investigative reporter. But the certain things she does, like you said,
seem rather naive for somebody that good. Or rather the
(33:23):
fact that she's able to put two in two together. Yeah,
no finger prints or dark Man, I know. But and
also it doesn't help that Peyton is walking out in
broad daylight as dark Man and he doesn't even have
his mask on. But that said, the way she met
her end. I'm like, did you really have to kill her?
I mean, just because this is dark Man's world and
(33:44):
so everything's so depressing and so sad, So I guess
that's why they wanted to do. It's like, oh, shock
value will kill her, and so like people will lose
their minds that she's going to get into her car
and it will be the end of her, and you know,
and then of course we see you know, dark Man
kind of seemed the the news report in him literally
tipping his hat to her. But I think they could
(34:04):
have done so much more with Jill when it came
to that, because she was uncovering so many things. And yes,
like you said, I think they were also trying to
show the message of how women were sexualized and belittled
when it came to the nineties and when it came
to a job like an investigative reporter, whether you know,
her boss wants to put her on such trivial things
as fake orgasms, because like a woman can't do this,
(34:26):
you know, she's supposed to be doing these little puff pieces.
And but I do like her her style and you know,
her sass that she has because she doesn't care. She
wants to do this thing, and so she just goes
down her married little way and incredibly is able to
keep her job. More power to her, because then I guess,
you know, the big boss comes down, going good job, Jill,
and So's like, bag your boss and goes on her
(34:47):
married little way. And then I think they want to
make her a little bit They want to make her
a little bit edgy. The fact that you know she's
always smoking when it comes to whatever crime scene she's
at may add that little bit of a noir twist
to it where you know she's lighting up every five seconds,
because these days you don't see that very often in
films or TV shows for other reasons like we don't
want you to emulate this because as a smoke of myself, yes,
(35:10):
do not smoke, folks, it's not good for you. But
here I think was like, oh, we're doing, We're gonna
do like almost a fan for Tao noir kind of character.
But then you know she gets killed for the dumbest reasons,
and Peyton has been warning her and Joe is smarter
than this. She's shown us that she's smarter than to
just randomly get in the car like yeah, see you
later love the hat and well this I like, really
(35:32):
like your face, and off she goes. And I think
Laurie's done just as dirty, because you know she was,
you know, doctor Brinkman's sister. We saw they. I think
they were tight as siblings when we when we first
see the two of them, because at first Peyton thinks
she's his girlfriend. She's like, oh, they're very familiar with
each other, and he's like, no, she's my little sister.
(35:53):
But then yeah, it's totally unexplained. What does this woman
do on a regular basis? Does she own the club?
Is it just as she has this property? How does
she make a living? I guess she probably has. She's
probably a co owner in a in a strip club possibly,
which I think also shows you maybe what the writers
thought of certain women. It's like, well, they're good for
let's have her run a strip club. It's fine, and
(36:14):
that way we can show scantily clad women while we're
at it. So that might have been the case. But
I do think that the fact that she gets trapped
so easily, and once again nobody listens to Peyton. He's like,
this guy is bad news. Be careful. Neither Jill nor Laurie,
who once again I think are smarter than this. Don't
(36:35):
listen until it's too late. At least Laurie made it
out alive. I'm glad that the least that was the case,
and she didn't die too, because I don't think we
needed both female characters to be killed on this film.
So I'm glad that at least at least she made
it through so and it was it was nice to
see somebody like like Renee O'Connor in this, knowing her
from other projects which I might be referring to when
(36:57):
we get to recommendations. So let's round off our characters
with our villain. We have talked about him a little
bit so during the course of this review, whose name
is also in the title, We have the very talented
Larry Drake reprising his role as Robert J. Durant. So
what did you make of Durant in this one?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I mean he was good enough, and I don't mean
it in a bad way, because the actor, he's actually
a good actor. What I mean is he did just enough.
He somehow was in a coma, as they just gloss
over in the beginning, wakes up and he's taking these
pills and he's walking with a cane. We have no
(37:37):
idea what these pills are for, and maybe like nitro
glittering for his heart. I don't again, I don't know it.
Just he starts yelling at somebody AND's like, oh, give
me my pills and takes a pill and magically he's good.
Which that's one of those things that has always irked
me as a person who you knows taking a pill
for like a headache, it does not work that fast,
(38:01):
Like you don't take the pill and you're like, oh cool,
let's go back to what we're doing and like go
jump over a building like you're laid up for a
hot minute, Like you're gonna sit down and be like,
uh like hang on, give me a minute, Like you're
gonna be distrut for intel like kicks in, which is
usually you know, however, even in a quick dissolve was
like a minute or two. He's just like all right,
pop a pill and go back to yelling at the
guys like okay, no big deal. And his plan isn't
(38:26):
much different than this, say the first movie, Like it's
literally like we want this building to do sketchy shit
in and the guys were like, hey, we've done We've
branched down into all these other things we're doing, like
drugs and so on and so forth. He's like, I
want to go back into guns, guns work what like seriously,
like he just doctor evil this where they're like, look,
(38:48):
we're a billion dollar company. He's like, I want to
take over the world. It's like we're doing that now,
Like calm yourself. So like his whole plan was just
very like ill conceived. It's like, we're gonna make guns
better than everybody else, and then he makes a space laser,
Like how did we get here. You're like, we're gonna
make better quality guns and everybody has, you know, glock
(39:11):
nines or fifteen's or AK forty seven. You're like, okay,
we're gonna make them better space guns. Like fuck what
that made a hard left and no pun intended with
that one, and then they happened to go He somehow
knows of a dude who's in an asylum who made
the space gun, which even boggles my mind because they
(39:33):
don't explain that at all, just like hey, I'm gonna
break you out because I knew you were here. How
I don't know we're just it's a thing, we're not
gonna talk about it. And the applot thread that they
totally missed out on was the warehouse they were trying
to take over. The guy they killed. He even says
(39:53):
something to dark Man about how his father or grandfather
or whoever it was, invented this tiny power supply that
could you know, power the world for an hour and
a half or whatever the silliness was at the time,
and they just completely like glossed over that story point
where that could have actually been the whole purpose of
this movie. Why he wants a specific warehouse opposed to
(40:15):
I want to make guns, like okay. And then he
breaks out a guy who happens to have said gun,
and they just have at it immediately, and this goes
back to the common sense thing. They test the gun
and blow something up. It's not on the news, which
would have been great segue for our anchor to you know,
(40:37):
kind of be you know, doing things in the background,
even if she's reporting on mysterious explosions or whatever the
case may be. All the doctor there mad scientists like
it curs to the left, I should fix that, like okay,
And then conveniently they have the the x KGB guy
(40:57):
who's like, in my country, we'd make nuclear reactors for spaceships.
He ether have one like man that's convenient because there
was literally just bitching twenty minutes ago about power supplies
and he's like, look what I have, Big bat thirty,
like all right, let's go. Well, it's just the convenience
of a lot of things happening here is just like ridiculous.
(41:19):
And then when Durant finally figures out that dark Man
is still alive, he becomes unhinged about dark Man as well.
Like the two women like have this pathological like must
kill each other. And again dark Man just needed like
gone for sack and gone and could have shot the
dude from like a million miles away and ended the
movie in like twenty minutes, but no, we need to
(41:41):
break into his organization played dress up forty seven times
because he just keeps all those masks in his cloak
of endlessness or whatever. And like when they see each other,
and it gets funny almost because when they do see
each other and realize that they are who they are,
like they both just turn into like rayby driven crazy
(42:04):
dogs and they're just like, go have ad it with
each other, which I will say that was a little entertaining,
but just the let's sell gun like let's make better
guns and then turns into space guns and then we're
gonna sell them to extremists, and it's like, where did
that even come from? You could have literally just sold
them to another government and we all been like, all right, cool,
(42:27):
let's go. He's like, nope, let's sell them to the Yazis,
and you're like, all right, that's the thing, Like they're
just the weird jumping in the logic. His logic is
just and I get it, he's got that big scar,
so clearly he is not operating with a full deck,
but just the jumps in his plan are wild, Like
(42:48):
where did you get the contact with the Yazis that
happened to have this money and all these other things,
because clearly you have connections to Russia and the KGB.
This dude could have hooked you up with literally anybody.
So it just I don't know it. It's one of
(43:09):
those that seemed like a good idea and they just
didn't know how to pull all the strings together. Because
again there was that plot point with the small battery
that the kid's grandfather, I think was designing and then
just communiately had Russia just had apparently like a footlock
or fall of these, so it's like the guy's got
to pick a lean. So there was potential. I just
(43:31):
think they didn't know which string to pull on and
where to go with the story, so they just kind
of at the time in the nineties, there was a
lot of tensions with extremist groups, so they figured let's
go with what's hot, and that was what was hot
at the time.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
In fact, I was wondering about that because at first
it was like, I never thought white supremacists were that wealthy.
But I suppose, you know, because we have our guy
in the suits bankrolling them. I suppose, you know, because
he tries he's the kind of the more presentable of our
extreme group. But I'm like, wow, I didn't realize there
were you know, and this might be me being krabby naive,
(44:10):
that there's somebody in the higher ups bank rolling extreme groups,
which I would not be surprised if that were the case.
But he was like, Okay, these are white supremacists and
the guy has truckloads of money that he can happily
roll around. He's like, how many millions do you want
for your space guns? And so he literally just comes
along with these suitcases packed for the money. Believe it's like,
I know, like a hundred million or something or something
(44:31):
along with.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Good five million per gun.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
There you go, you know, So there's just a ridiculous
amount of money. So, as I said, I guess this
guy might be might have brought into he once again
trying to read too much into this, made this high
roller is also a white supremacist and wants these guys
to succeed. And so he's like our bankroll you are
you know, what's a couple of million between friends, and
(44:55):
so he's just like throwing this money all over the
place because he wants these guns. So I, like you said,
at the time, with these these tensions within with these
extreme groups, that's was maybe what they were trying to
say here is if you know, if you're not careful,
there might be the wrong people, you know, financing these
groups and trying to make take over the country or
(45:18):
take over the world. And yes, these weapons were absolutely
ridiculous and the special effects were just as bad. Unfortunately,
thirty years on they have not aged well at all.
And yes, there's this I also found, you know, to
your point, it's it is really hilarious when Durant and
Peyton see each other and he's like wrestler and he's
(45:41):
like drowned, and it's like, why are you yelling at
each other like this? I get it, it's the nineties
and it's cheesy, but really is every time you see
each other, are you going to be yelling each other's
last names? I guess so. And also what I what
I you know, what I thought was it was hilarious
on its head was last time we saw he'd crashed
(46:01):
his helicopter into a bridge, so there's usually no coming
back from that. Yes, this is a superhero movie, so
of course even the villain can come come unscathed from
something as major as helicopter exploding. And you know, he's
perfectly fine. I guess maybe he has a top notch
(46:21):
surgeon who's able to stitch him up. That's why, like
you said, he's got a little scar on his face,
so he was. You know, the guy did a fantastic
job for the nineties to where his face is in
almost mint condition. But already he was unhinged in the
first film, and he had a little bit. He had
this specish of cutting people's fingers off and collecting them here. Yeah,
he's gone even crazier when in the way he behaves
(46:44):
and everything else. And I'm sure that, yes, his his
major concussion definitely did not help with that. But as
I said before, I did appreciate what Larry brought to
this role. And like you've said, Keith, he has he
is known for multiple things and no surprises. Very unique
voice is suddenly a lot of people remember because he
has and he has a lot of voice work. You know,
(47:04):
you folks might remember him sounding like Johnny Bravo, where
he provided quite a few voices on there. So yeah,
I think he's just as unhinged of a villain that
we need for a film like this, which is already
and I've used this word multiple times take a drink,
ridiculous just for just everything that the premise and such.
And yeah, they don't really pick a lane. It's oh,
(47:25):
we're using these space guns, but we don't have a
power source. Oh, so we're going to buy off this
guy and use his resources. Oh, Russian dude here has
the perfect power supply for these guns. There's so much
convenience in this film. Granted it's not particularly long film.
I believe it's roughly about ninety minutes or so, so
I guess they had to just rush it over and
(47:48):
maybe thought themselves, we're not really going to do something
major story. We're just going to do a popcorn flick
that people will enjoy. And probably that's, you know, to
your point the right said, maybe we're reading too much
into it, and it was just supposed to be sit back,
shove popcorn in your mouth and just watch the insanity unfold.
So I but I was glad that at least Larry
(48:10):
did reprise his role as Durant, even though we weren't
able to get to Liam to reprise his role as
dark Man. So so that that is I think the
saving grace of it. So anything else you would like
to add on this movie that we might not have
touched upon before we get to ratings.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I actually there's one thing is what are the odds
two guys are working on the same thine thinetic skin
at the same time in the same town, like statistically,
like how is that possible? Agree? And also why did
the dude not have security in his high security lab
if he's working on this like super secret crap, Like
(48:48):
he's just like doors on lock, come on in, who
wants a beer? Like what? No, like call the cops,
have security, like change the locks, put on locks anything. Nope,
none of that.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
New York in the nineties, as we know, not the
not the safest place to be. And and also I
think it might once again play into the naivete of
he's just so enamored with his science he doesn't care like, oh,
somebody might just come in the middle of the night
and shoot me and steal my staff. But I guess
that never crosses his mind. So because I guess he's
(49:22):
just so you know, literally so engrossed in what he's
doing that he's not paying attention to that. But yeah,
I think it speaks to once again the lack of
all roundedness of our characters and the major naivete that
so many characters should not have, but here we are,
so I guess. Then getting to ratings, Keith, what do
(49:42):
you give this Dark Man's sequel out of ten?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
The air about that, I'm gonna have to give it
a seven out of ten. It's it's passable, but it's
not rewatchable.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
That's that's totally fair. I'm there with you. I'm also
gonna give this seven out of ten. I was glad
I saw it. Am I going to rewatch it? Probably not.
If I'm going to rewatch a dark dark Man movie,
it will be the OG from way back when. So
but as I said, perfor, I'm glad we watched it,
and you know, for once, I suppose it was a
(50:18):
first viewing for both of us, I mean, Branton, not
the most pleasant, but still we found a movie that
neither of that of us had yet seen. So there
is that, So I guess then getting to recommendations, is
there anything you'd like to recommend to the class this week?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, I'm gonna go with a bunch of random movies,
but there's gonna be a trend here. So if you
want to see somebody get horrifically disapgared and become a badass,
check out the original Swamp Thing and the sequel Swamp
Thing too, because that is all about scientists doing dumb
stuff without doors with locks. That's the best way I
can explain it. Uh. Spawn from ninety seven, that's another
(50:57):
one with let's depray somebody and see what happens. And
then you got the original RoboCup. You're gonna sense a
trend here. Everybody gets burned to a crisp here and
then comes back and becomes a crazy badass. A movie
that immediately popped the mind was V for Vendetta. You
couldn't hit that nail any harder in the head if
you tried with a sledgehammer. And yeah, I think I'm
(51:19):
gonna save my other ones for a rainy day.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
Well, those are great recommendations. As always, I guess you
covered the beasts, I will cover the beauty then. So
for those who have not seen it, if you want
to see Renee O'Connor in a role that I think
pretty much was her claim to fame, check out of course,
Zena Warrior Princess, where she of course played Zena's sidekick Gabrielle.
(51:44):
So I you know, that was a favorite show of
mine as a kid growing up. I was big on
the Adventures of Hercules, which was kind of a companion
piece of that, and they would cross over from time
to time. So if you have not yet seen it
and they're able to track it down, check out Zena
Warrior Princess. You have Renee O'Connor and Lucy lawless playing
the titular character and if you enjoy your swords and
(52:05):
sandals and a little bit of Greek mythology, very random
Greek mythology, mind you, but still very entertaining and very
much of its time, I would I would put at
the top of the list zena warrior princess. So, of course,
dear listeners, if you want to share your thoughts on
the films we discuss here, you know what to do.
You can should email to Happiness and Darkness how at
(52:27):
gmail dot com. Once again, Happiness and Darkness How at
gmail dot com. If you're not doing so already, be
sure to follow us on our social media on Facebook,
Wagon Finances Happiness and Darkness and of course on x
weaken Finance us Hi Darkness Pod. Of course, we appreciate
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listening to us on any platform be that Spotify, Apple
(52:48):
Podcasts and Dora you name it, shoulder rate and review
us as that keeps the algorithm stimulated and allows the
show to reach more like mindears like yours. So big,
thank you to those who have done so in the future,
Thank you to those who will so keith when you're
not giving amazing recommendations on a weekly basis. To our
list is in providing fantastic insights on this podcast, where
(53:11):
cand folks find you on the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Well, currently I'm designing my gingerbread house for our Christmas competition.
That usually takes me a good three or four months.
You'd be surprised how much gingerbread you go through designing
those things, but you know, you know, it's tough, but
somebody's got to do it. Plus, the dogs love gingerbread,
so you know when I'm not doing that, you can
find me on obviously here with you. I was on
(53:35):
Star Trek the Underscovered podcast a couple times this year
Gold Standards with you? Was that this year or last year?
And then a couple other fun pug was it this year?
Speaker 3 (53:46):
It was last year?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
This year is going by so fast, fans, it's already
almost October, so it's just wild that we're gonna be
twenty twenty six soon enough. And then obviously, when you
can't find me on here, you can always find us.
Find me on our Facebook page, drop a comment, question,
concern whatever. I'm always runing to talk about combooks, cartoons, lions, tigers,
and Bears.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Fantastic stuff and yes, sir Keith, you will be making
your return to the gold Standard Theater sooner rather than later.
And when it comes to me, folks, before we get
into that, you can find my day job hosting the
radio show Whiskey and Cigarettes, where we play the very
best and nothing but the best of country music for
you guys from Malabama to Zach Brown. With more information
about that, you can visit our website which is Whiskey
(54:31):
and Cigarettes show dot com. Podcast Wise, as Keith kindly
mentioned and was brought up earlier in the course of
this episode, you can find myself, Zan Sprouse and Rachel
Friend on gold Standard the oscars podcast, where we have
reviewed all the best Picture winning movies in chronoledge order
as we wait for the ninety eighth Best Picture read
itself and not that long to go. Actually, time flies.
(54:53):
As Keith was reminding us, we are now reviewing movies
that we have picked and we also have returning in
you guest co hosts like Keith bring their favorite movies
to the gold Standard Theater. Recently, Maureen van Zandt joined
us and her pick was rock Star starring, of course,
Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. Coming up next, we're going
to be keeping the musical trender continuing. As of this week,
(55:17):
we are going to be reviewing a movie that I picked,
and surprise, surprise, the movie that I have selected is
Spice World, So we get to talk some Spice Girls
and enjoy some good old music from the nineties once again.
And I'm sure that my sister will probably be very
proud of me. I guess when I was berating her
and deriding her for enjoying the Spice Girls. So that's
(55:39):
we're going to be doing there. Speaking of music, because
there is quite quite a good selected tracks on that.
Myself and Charles Skaggs can be found on the fandom
Zone podcast where we're currently reviewing the second season of Peacemaker.
And yes, so if you're fans of what Charles review
refers to as trailer park rock, you definitely get your
(55:59):
share when it comes to that and self, that's been
a rather good season, I would say, and when it
comes to this show, folks. And next time we are
going to be reviewing, we're going to be closing out
the dark Man trilogy by reviewing the nineteen ninety six
Bradford May film once again, Die dark Man, Die Man three.
(56:19):
So uh, Keith, anything you'd like to add on our
next movie or anything else before we sun off, because
I believe you have seen this one.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, I have seen this one. I vaguely remember bits
of it. It has been several decades, so it'll be
interesting to have a rewatch of this one.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
I have not seen this one, so I'm looking forward
to I guess saying farewell for the moment to dark Man,
unless somebody else decides to pick the property up. So
that said, folks, next time we will see you, of course,
next time with Die dark Man Die. Until then, thank
you so much for listening to the show and supporting us,
and of course thank you for the privilege of your time.
(56:58):
Stay super Shou
Years ago, one man's work, one man's identity, one man's
life was destroyed. He's coming back now. A face from
his past has returned with a vengeance.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We are going back into the arms business.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I want to say, Durad dead.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
He took my face, my hands, he took my life.
You will kill again, and you will keep on killing
until someone stops him. And that someone is going to.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Be me this time. You are so predictable. Their deadly
conflict will end once and for all. I want to
see the freak suffered dark Man to the return of
Durant Larry Drake, Kinder Lady and Arnold Vosslou as dark
(01:05):
Man on video cassette of July eleventh, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Show people, and welcome to our three hundred and tenth
episode of Happiness in Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast, where
we discuss superhero movies, the Marble DC, dark Horse Image
and beyond. Naturally, there will be spoilers, folks, so you
have been warned. I'm one of your co hosts, de
Janick and is always joining me as my superhero partner
in crime, mister Keith for this. Hey Keith, how are
(01:35):
you today?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh? You know, I can't complain too much. It's actually
nice here in North Carolina for once. It's not raining,
it's not snowing. My yard doesn't look like the Jungles invading.
So I mean, all things be considered, it could be worse,
it could be better. I mean a post of this
movie which is just interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Very well said, because yes, it is very going to
be an interesting one because the day we are discussing
a movie that neither of us had ever seen, dark
Man Too, The Return of Durant from ninety five. This
was directed by Bradford May. The story was by Robert
Eisley and Lawrence Hurtzog, while the screenplay was by Stephen McKay.
The score was by Randy Miller was bringing back that
(02:15):
wonderful Danny Elfman score from the first movie Funny Story.
It was screened at an AMC Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
before heading to home video release, and because apparently they
kind of checked it out, they watched it like they
weren't particularly happy with what was on screen. Apparently these
special effects weren't up to scratch, and so they were like,
(02:35):
this is going direct to video, and that's what it did.
So what we do though, is it had a budget
added for just for inflation, of eleven million dollars. So
getting to first impressions here, Keith, you know you didn't
get the chance to discuss the first dark Man movie,
so going from I'm assumed you'd seen the first one,
So going from that, what did you make of this sequel?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Uh? Yeah, I actually owned the dark Man comic book
from way back when in nineteen ninety. I think it's
like three or four whenever it came out. I am
a fan of the original. I somehow skipped this one
and went straight to three or that are I just
mentally blocked it out because while it's not a terrible movie,
it's just not good. There are a lot of gaping
(03:20):
plot holes and just a lot of jump to conclusions
or just kind of lack of any kind of common
sense whatsoever in this movie, with the number of people
who die from the dumbest ways possible. But I get it.
It's a product of its time. You know, they were
trying to do like a superhero ish franchise, but it
(03:40):
just if they were to redo it now, I think
they could do a better job, especially thinking some of
these gaps for shortcomings, just for no other reason. The
shocking level or lack of common sense in this movie
is just astounding. Like they blow stuff up and you
never see cops, or somebody gets murdered and you're like,
(04:01):
that's fine, and then just keep going. You're like, what
is happening here? Like even crappy cops in some of
these movies would still do a basic job of like
let's go see what's going on. Nope, none of that.
They just skate over all the important details and just
go straight for action, which I get based on the
budget of eleven million dollars, you can tell where they
(04:23):
spent this money. It clearly was not on the props
or makeup well, I guess prosthetics, yes, but some of
the special effects were definitely a product of their time.
So it's a fun watch, But you know, I'm not expecting,
you know, high hopes from this one.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Because I sort of wondered, because this is literally an
original Sam Raimi creation. When then and then of course
the it went to comics, like you mentioned, and so
I wondered why Sam abandoned this franchise. Maybe to him
it was just I'll do it one and done. I'll
leave the franchise open if somebody wants to pick it
up eventually. But as we know, he directed the first one,
(05:00):
which was I wouldn't say groundbreaking, but it was kind
of cool that somebody literally created a superhero from screen,
you know, on screen. It wasn't inspired by a comic book.
This was literally, you know, Sam's brainchild. When the first
dark Man grace the screen, I was so I was
really curious about this because I, like you, I really
enjoyed the first one, as wacky as it was, and
(05:21):
it very much is a Sam Raimi film here, I
think we get some of that atmosphere recaptured from the
first one. However that I think the big problem with
this is even the story. For the most part. Yes,
it's incredibly insane in the very heightened reality, and I
was there actually few things I probably want to ask
you about because I'm not not being American and not
living in the States, either in the nineties or now,
(05:44):
you know, thirty years on. I was like, these things
even happen, Like you know, people randomly coming out of
a hotel pulling out a gun and shooting randomly. I mean,
I know that. Unfortunately, there is a firearms problem in
the US, and obviously don't want to go down that
rabbit hole necessarily, but I was like, people just randomly
pulling out guns and nobody's doing anything. So I thought
(06:05):
it was that was kind of crazy, But it's the nineties.
It's that kind of period of action films where everybody's
packing and doing all sorts of crazy things. What really
got to me and you and I have actually talked
about this when it comes to certain movies, I think,
especially of this era, but even further on, the ADR
was really really bad. I mean there were some moments
where you could literally tell that people were in the
(06:27):
booth reading their lines. And I think we will actually
address this when we get to the characters that we
were talking about today, because there are quite a few characters,
but they don't really get much to do other than
you know, because today spoilers, folks are gonna be talking
the course about our protagonists and our villain because all
the other in between ers don't really get that much.
I think there were a lot of undeveloped, untapped potential
(06:49):
when it came to certain characters that we got here.
They either die or they just disappear, So I was like,
maybe there's not really much point in talking about I'm
sure we can mention them during the course of this review,
and we probably will. But what really got to me
was the adr and when it came to just certain scenes,
I'm like, I can see where this became a thing
(07:11):
and why people stopped doing it. For example, our hero
on his news going no in the most unconvincing way possible.
But other than that, I'm glad we got another dark
Man film, and we had got a third one. I
do hope that at some point somebody picks this up again,
because the concept is really cool and I really like it,
so I hope maybe I think it would make for it,
(07:33):
you know, and something else we've often said, I think
this would make a great TV show. I think if
somebody decided to pick it up and go really dark,
literally no pun intent, I think it would really be
would it would make for a rather compelling TV show?
So hopefully made somebody's listening. It has happened before that
we're on this podcast, we've said things, and then next
day we find out there's news that, oh, a dark
Man show is in production. Okay, So I enjoyed my
(07:57):
time with this but yes, it's a very problematic film,
and I can see why the ultimate decision was made
of we're not going to show this in theaters, We're
just going to go direct the home video, and I
can see why there is very much a home video
quality to it. Seeing also, I guess the budget at
the time.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So I guess.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Then getting to our characters on the board, let's kick
off with our titular character. We have my fellow South
Africa and Arnold Bosloo as Doctor Peyton Westlake dark Man,
so Keith. You know, we had seen, of course Liam
Neeson play this character and was a ground a breaking
role for him. What did you make of this version
of our good doctor?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
He was interesting. He definitely was in the same or
similar vein as Liam Neeson, so wasn't too big of
a stretch in terms of actors in their styles, which
I appreciate because you and I both know and I
won't mention any names the Crow where they recast the
lead character and they are just so jarringly different that
it actually takes away from the movie. Here at least
(08:57):
it kind of hit the same beats with him, and
I can appreciate that. That being said, there was just
so many jumps in logic. It was amazing. I thought
he was playing hopscotch because he steals money from drug dealers,
which he needed to finance his science somehow, so I
get that. But then he's got this crazy like underground
(09:20):
lab with this AI driven train and computer and all
this crazy technology that we're just not going to talk about.
It's just it's there. Be cool, don't worry about it.
And it's just one of those things. It's so distracting
because yes, we know from the first one that he
does take his lab with him and go and start
(09:42):
doing these experiments to fix his rubber face and whatnot.
And they just continued on that, and you don't see
any of this growth or this potential, you know, him
building this hideout because it's effectively the batcave, and you
just don't see any of that. And then we're just
like and it jumps around. It's very haphazard in terms
of what his character's doing and what's going on. You
(10:07):
see him one scene he's working underground in his lab,
and then the next scene he's at the post office
and he sticks out like a sore thumb because he
has his face wrapped in all of these bandages and whatnot,
and you'd imagine that at this point in time, you
would have developed some sort of makeup cover or something
else to kind of hide that a little bit so
(10:28):
he didn't stick out like a sore thumb. Nope, he's
just gonna run around with the bandage on his face
the entire movie, like The Phantom of the Opera, and
we're just be like, all right, cool, no big deal.
And you see him interact with the little kids and
they're like, thanks, mister, instead of screaming in terror like
most small children would have done when you see mister
two face or you know, whatever pizza face you want
(10:51):
to call him, one hundred percent kids would have gone
running for the hills after they saw that. But you know,
it is what it is, and we're just gonna again things.
We're gonna skip over. What I do appreciate about this character,
and they continued on from the first movie is him
learning the mimic skills of other people. He's going to impersonate,
(11:11):
Like he scans the picture of one of the bad
guys and he's sitting there practicing the voice, practicing the voice.
And we did see him do this in the first
one as well, but I appreciate that they continue it
and they show how he's gotten better at it, and
you see that that growth you're okay with, but like
everything else, you're like, man, that's fine whatever. The one
thing I found annoying is when he has those psychotic
(11:35):
snaps and he just starts like frothing at the mouth,
and it does that weird like he's in his head
going through all these crazy scenes and like the atom
bomb blows up and just blood rushing. I'm like, are
you having a stroke? Sir? Are you okay? And then
he goes into like this rage filled like incredible hulk
monster thing, and you're like, oh, okay, this is you
psyching yourself up, apparently, And it worked the first time,
(12:00):
but it got distracting, and we saw it in the
original movie as well, so it's not like this is
something they introduced here. But it's one of those things
they could have scaled down. They could have just like
had something like whatever in like a little bomb or
a light or something in his eyes, or a quick
cut screen, not that jarring Caesar inducing screens that we
got the two or three times in the movie. I know,
(12:24):
I get it. It's petty and minor, but it's kind
of the biggest selling point of it. Like when he snaps,
he literally, you know, becomes this rage berserk monster, and
they just they could have done it better justice, Like
you see the Hulk, he hulks out, his eyes turned
green and then he turns into monster. This dude looks
like he's having a seizure. I appreciate they didn't rehash
(12:46):
a lot of this stuff from the first movie, like oh,
why you like this because he does meet new people
in this movie, but none of them are like even
the news reporters like oh hey, doctor so and so,
not like holy shit, what the hell happened to your faith?
None of that, Like she's just okay, friend, it took me,
like you know, however, many days, weeks, hours to find you,
(13:07):
and I found you based on a glass that had
no fingerprints, which literally made no sense. After she said that,
she's like, I found you based on this cup but
it had no fingerprints, Then how did you find him
if it has no fingerprints? Because this was just Yeah,
she's a spectacular reporter.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Again, that's one other one of those like you know,
you were just gonna glaze over that one, or when
she does the big reveal about the Big Bad being
alive and she just gets into her car and just
drives away. You're telling me dark man who's dealt with
his shenanigans in the first movie and a reporter who
just reported on the Kingpin of New York does not
(13:49):
check her car to see if there's a bomb, because,
as he said, Durant is a sketchy guy and he's
going to come after you. He says that and then
immediately walks away from the car and it blows up.
I'm like, are you serious? Like what in the actual heck?
And yes, I actually used a different vernacular, but you
(14:10):
know their kids, and I'm just like I visibly groaned
at that. I'm like, are you really serious? And then
he then like it faces him for I don't know,
maybe like twenty minutes, and then he just moves on,
and I get it. They severed his nerve endings and
(14:30):
he's kind of separated from reality, but he's not dead inside.
He should still be like, oh damn, I kind of
did this. He's like, nope, fuck it, let's go like
all right, continue on, and then it just kind of
spirals from there. And I realized at that point or
a little after that, the movie was starting to catch
up with itself, and I'm like, all right, running out
of time. So here comes the dumb stuff like where
(14:53):
he beats up the the Russian or ex Russian KGB
guy and just handcustomed to a car, Like let's not
tie him up or anything, like make sure he's secure now,
we'll just crack him in the head and hope for
the best. Like, really, we're gonna do this, all right,
he should be able to break out, and like, I
don't know, twenty minutes and he does. He literally breaks out,
(15:13):
and I'm like, if you just use more rope, none
of this would have happened. But you know again, it
turned into a very slappy writing toward the end, and
I get it. They were trying to tie the loose
ends up and finish the movie. Like if dark Man
had just made himself a weapon and shot Durant, none
of this would have happened the first time he saw him,
(15:36):
or the second or the third. You're sensing a trend here, right,
So it's just like little things that he could have
done to end this movie so much sooner. And we're
like let's see where this goes, and they just ran
with it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I think so too. Now you have to help me
understand Darkman's so called powers in this film, as in,
so technically he can't feel pain, is what I'm assuming.
He's a disguise, but he doesn't really have any Like
does he have superhuman strength? I don't think so does he?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
He has heightened strength because he has lost the ability
to control his adrenaline. That's what you're seeing when he
does that, those crazy little cut screens and the flashes
and the screaming and the weirdness that is his adrenaline
shooting through the roof. And that's why he is stronger
and able to pick up like the manhole cover in
the beginning. He's able to do that because he always
(16:28):
has a heightened level adrenaline going through his systems. It's
also supposed to help his healing factor, but I don't
understand how that one's gonna work. So it's heightened senses,
high intellect, the mimic ability, and no pain, which you
would think would actually be a detriment because you'd walk
(16:49):
into shit all the time, but it doesn't happen apparently.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I think the comparison that you made to Batman is
probably the best one because that's the exactly it. Because
I guess if you do shoot him, dark Man can die,
even though it doesn't feel the pain. That's why he's
always running away from halo of bullets and such and
users like you said, said manhole cover as a shield
when the guy's literally emptying his chamber into it with
his machine gun. So that was I was trying to
(17:16):
figure out. It's like, okay, so I guess it's more
like Batman as him being a master of disguise and
being probably agile and doing all these other things. So
he's very much a an average joe who has these
extra abilities of that heightened adrenaline and no nerve endings.
When it came to the thing that really bothered me
about this is you know you mentioned this towards the end.
(17:38):
Does he have everybody's masks stashed away somewhere? Because he
keeps changing faces every five minutes, So it's because you know,
BERSI appears as one henchman, then the other and the other.
Like I guess he stashed them away somewhere because you
don't see him walking around with a little case or
anything unless they're within the infinite recesses of his robe.
(17:59):
I don't know the way he pulls these masks out,
but I'm like, Okay, it's a crazy movie. I'll take it.
Because one minute he's the Also, the time he takes
to apply these masks takes like two seconds for him.
He's like bro evidently because we don't see him putting
them on while he's in you know, the heat of battle.
So that was something that kind of was kind of
scratching my head about. Well, what I did, Like, like
(18:21):
you said, I think they tried to retain what the
original character was, like you know, the the Amnissan version
of this and you know the sam Raimi version of this.
I think they tried to stay true to the spirit.
But yes, there were just some things that were way
too ridiculous. I mean also when we talk about our villain,
there are a couple of things that I just don't
understand either for example, but my also my my big
(18:42):
question about this is what is Peyton's mission statement? Is
it just that he wants to make it, wants to
perfect this technique of this fabric, you know, what to create,
you know, the perfect mask that he can apply for
a longer period of time. Is this just pure vanity
or because he's a scientist, is he hoping some day
to pattern this or all share it with the world
(19:05):
for folks who have been disfigured and can you know,
literally have their face recreated. That's what I'm hoping. We
never sort of really unders get this because it seems
like before Peyton meets doctor Brinkman, it seems like he's
just desperate to get his face back. I understand that
we're like, this is supposed to be like a superhero.
It should he be so conscious about his looks that much?
(19:29):
That's what something that that was kind of in my head.
I'm like, I guess it's just that he can't better
look at himself in the mirror, or and he just
wants to be himself. So it could be just a
fact of he doesn't feel whole, and so if he
has his face staring back at him, he feels whole.
I don't know, because, as I said, we don't really
get a mission stated from him, like I've been researching
for years so I can help people like me. You
(19:52):
never hear him say this. We see him do the
vigilante thing by night apparently saving people, and he hears
a scream and so he rushes off and to see
what he can do. So he's trying to do good.
But outside that, you know, he's using all this money
to fund his research. So my thought was, is he
being incredibly selfish and just wanted to do for him
(20:12):
and just because he is so obsessed with his looks
because he used to be this handsome, dashing doctor and
now is no longer and that was all his whole
identity or data. ALI is like, this worked for me.
I can then share it with other people. As I said,
I hope that's the case, but it's never really explained.
But on that I think Arnold did a good job
(20:33):
playing the character and he was he was I think
had it was charismatic enough and did what he had
to do. But for the most part it was just
as someone landing his mission statement, which I didn't understand.
And secondly, those some of the adr like you know
when when doctor Brinkman dies, he goes no, and it's
(20:54):
so it's so underwhelming. I'm like, this does not sound
like a guy stricken by Greek. It really sounds like
he's in his booth, really going oh, I have to
do this. No, So I'm like that that just really
kind of threw me out the movie. But I suppose
sometimes that's what happens, and you know, thirty years later, Yeah,
(21:15):
the film has not aged particularly one when it comes
to the effects and such. But I mean the character
of dark Man, I think once again, being your average
Joe can still work today. I think that does stick.
So before we do move on here, Keith, I, in fact,
I would love to pick your brain on this. Do
you think it's a it's a fact that Peyton is
just it's all about vanity, or that he is hoping
(21:35):
to create something that will help mankind.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
I think it might be a little of both. And
it's not vanity, how you think it's more of In
the first one, he was trying to literally do this
to help the betterment of mankind because of the burns
and you know, generally horrific. But then he himself gets
inflicted with his horrific scars, and you know, he's disfigured
(22:04):
and he's he's lost the love of his life because
of everything that Durant has done to him. So him
perfecting the skin and him getting his face back would
provide him with a certain level of normalcy that he
doesn't have, and will also help him potentially regain some
handle on a sanity because he tends to fly off
(22:26):
the handle on the minorst of things because again he
has this rage in his system because of the heightened adrenaline.
So I think it's kind of it's a twofold. It's
not true vanity, like he thinks he's ugly, but I
think it's more of a type of a sanity thing,
just like we've seen in characters like the two Face
(22:48):
in Batman with Harvey Dent. It's he's trying to quote
unquote hide or fix the ugly side of him, his monster.
So it will again give him some some of sanity potentially.
You know, we could also be reading into this so
much more than it really is, but that's my take
on it. Is him continuing this research is because he
(23:12):
wants to eventually, like you said, come out and be like, hey,
I have this amazing fix all product. And also to
fix his horridic I can't I just made up a
word there, his horrific disfigurement. So that to fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
And also to your point, I mean, thank you for
that yeah, And I think you make a great point.
It could just be to be able to cling on
to the last remnants of sanity that he does have,
because we do even see him these moments of almost insanity.
Wasshe cackling madly as he's creating these pills that he
thinks will be able to give Durant to kill him,
who is like doing mad signing. Ah A, you enjoy these,
(23:51):
won't you? And were like, wow, okay, dude, So I
guess that's how far gone Peyton actually is, where he
just tackles with glee doing these kind of things. And also,
like you said to you, the fact that he's so
out in the open. You wouldn't expect this of dark Man,
at least from the one that we'd seen, the first one,
where he is he always hides in the shadows. He
(24:12):
makes sure not to be seen. Yet he he's out
there in broad daylight checking his mailbox like it's nothing.
So it's almost defeating the purpose of being a master
of disguise doing that. It's like you'd think he'd be
wearing his skin, you know, the patent mask when he's
doing this, because anyway, you just have to rush in, rush,
(24:33):
out because obviously you're on the you're on the clock
when you're wearing that, that the mask, because obviously at
some point just dissolves. But uh, I did find that
a little bit odd that dark Man is now literally
walking around by day as dark Man. But uh, and
the kids, like you said, just taking as like matter
of fact and oh, thank you mister, enough they go.
So that was something else that I was a little
(24:54):
bit sort of curious about. But uh, but you know,
thank you for that explanation. I think that's that's probably
I mean, like you said, we might be reading too
much into it. I think that'll probably it is that
it is trying to keep a handle on whatever little
sanity Peyton has left. So before we actually do get
to our villain, because I think we brought it up
and I know they don't really get much to do,
(25:16):
but I would like your thoughts on these I wanted
to take a quick look at our two you know,
more prominent female characters in this, so I e who
we mentioned earlier, Kim Delaney as Jill Randall and Renee
O'Connor as Laurie Brinkman. So when it came to these two,
did you have any thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Them, Well, when you have a reporter, and this is
very much a product of its time. As we've said before,
she's trying to break out of this mold, and she's
in an environment where most of the men around her
are very misogynistic, and especially the report that he gives her,
you know, a real orgasm or fake orgasms? Like are
(25:57):
you serious? Like I didn't somehow again I've blacked out
this entire movie. But the fact is that, you know,
she's like, can I get a real you know anything?
And he's like, just do that, sweetheart, and it's like
again another scene in the movie. I'm like, oh god,
this is terrible. But she does break the story about
Durant and then again this you know sleuth. You know,
(26:21):
I'm gonna say sleuth detective news reporter. She knows who
he is, she's familiar with all the crazy stuff that
he's done, does the report, and then again proceeds to
talk to Peyton and be like, good job, I like
this face better and then just gets in her car
and blows up, and as you said, he turns into
Darth Vader. And then but like, are you again if
(26:46):
you're this type of reporter? And you're familiar with these individuals.
The first thing I'd be doing is checking the car.
She does none of that. She just assumes nothing has
happened in the however long period of time from when
the news report was on the air to when she left,
which I don't know. It seemed like it was like
two minutes, which is amazing travel because you're telling me
(27:08):
they just happened to have blocks of C four sitting
around the house, like just in case they need to
blow a car up. I mean it's possible. I don't know.
They could know a dude and just call and be like, hey, Joe,
go rig so and so's car to blow up, and
he just he's often doing it. But you don't see
that scene, so you have no idea how that car
got rigged to blow up. And then again, dark man
(27:29):
is standing right there and he's just like he's a
shady guy. Watch yourself, okay, And this turns around and
walks off, and you're like, I do appreciate the fact
that while there was a little flirting, it wasn't the
obnoxious love interest flirting shenanigans. It was just female character.
You could see there was a little you know, spark
(27:50):
of whatever, and then obviously she gets taken out. But
I'm glad they didn't force love interests in this movie
like they do on so many others, even though technically
what's her face? She does become like a pseudo love
interest because Durant holds her hostage. But Laurie, Laurie, thank you,
(28:12):
I blanked on her name. Yea, Laurie is kind of
a love interest ish, but not really. It's just they
had a couple of This is where it kind of
like they dropped the ball. They had a couple interactions
and yes, dark Man was looking out for her, but
not in the love interest kind of way, just the
your brother was killed, I'm trying to protect you from
(28:33):
Durant kind of way. So it's like big sister or sorry,
little sister, big brother kind of vibe, not love interest
kind of vibe, which is what they might have been
going with with Laurie. And what gets me is they
just don't explain any of her backstory, at least with
you know, Jill. You know she's a reporter, she's being
(28:53):
treated like crap at her day job. You're like, okay, fine, Laurie.
You see her for two minutes talking to her brother.
And then the next time you see her, she's at
a gentleman's club. Okay, Like, we're just not gonna talk
about this one, Like how has she been here the club?
All right? Like is she in charge of the club?
(29:15):
Is she like a bartender? What does she do there?
She is clearly the most dressed out of everybody there,
so I assume she's a manager. But again, we're not
going to talk about this. You have it's literally one
extreme to the other. And what I appreciate about appreciate
about dark Man is he's there for like a single task.
(29:36):
He doesn't get distracted, even when a girl comes up
to him with the handcuffs and she makes a comment
and he jokes back to her and then handcuffs her
to the the bar and just keeps walking. He gets
distracted for a split second, but then turns and continues
on talking to her or finding her then going to
talk to her and giving her a heart to heart.
And what gets me is she's again another character, and
(29:57):
a lot of these characters are very just naive to
the world. When he's like, Durant did this. You're in
this guy, you know, the crime boss that literally everybody
in the city knows about killed your brother. And she's like,
who's Durant? Like what you like work in the adult
industry in New York, you know in the city, like
everybody knows everybody Like this is just literally made no
(30:19):
sense whatsoever. And even when he warns her and she
still goes about selling this building, she meets him and
she's like, wait, Durant, wait, your Durant, wait, like you
see the little real spinning in her brain, like holy shit,
he wasn't lying, Like I was like, are you serious?
(30:43):
And again this is just lazy character development and you're
just like, well, okay, And then she tries to back
out of it when she's surrounded by a bunch of
burly guys and she's like, you know what, maybe I'm
not going to sign this paperwork. I have to use
the bathroom. And then Durant's like, okay, it's down the
hall to the left, Like dude, seriously, like you should
(31:06):
have should have had one of your hench people, preferably
not dark Man, but you didn't know who that was
at the time walk her to the restroom. Nope, we're
just gonna let her walk out. And then she runs
for a taxi, which New York City at that time,
you know, during the nineties had horrific traffic. It still does.
She would have been better off just running away on
foot and calling it a day, But you know, that's
(31:29):
a rent for a different day. I just both of
them were frustrating in different ways. And I don't know
if it's more so because we have seen so many
movies since this has come out with significantly better female
character development that when you go back to these movies
from the nineties, you just want to, you know, shake
(31:52):
somebody because it makes your brain hurt.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I definitely agree. You know, if our mutual friend Zan
Sprang Else were here, she would reiterate the concept that
she has brought numerous times on gold Stand on other podcasts,
where a lot of times men don't know how to
write female characters and very you know these days they
you know, we've gotten better at it. I speak for
(32:16):
the male race, all men. I speak trying to speak
for all men here, trying to be the mouthpiece for
all men, that we have gotten better. You have found
we have come across better male writers who know how
to write women. Here, clearly, I think, you know, not
being a woman myself. But I think, yeah, our our
writers did not really know how to write women because
both Jill and Laurie are done incredibly dirty. I mean,
(32:41):
like you said, we could have had the very simplistic,
very fascile love interest between sort of love going on
between Jill and Peyton. It could have been almost like
a Beauty and the Beast kind of situation because of course,
you know, let's be honest, of course, Jee is an
incredibly good looking woman and and you know he is,
you know, all tired with his bandages and disfigured, so
(33:02):
they could have done almost Phantom of the Opera thing
once again, like you know, she was like the Christine
to his Phantom. But at the same time she gets
done in craibly dirty because she's this incredibly clever, ingenious,
investigative reporter. But the certain things she does, like you said,
seem rather naive for somebody that good. Or rather the
(33:23):
fact that she's able to put two in two together. Yeah,
no finger prints or dark Man, I know. But and
also it doesn't help that Peyton is walking out in
broad daylight as dark Man and he doesn't even have
his mask on. But that said, the way she met
her end. I'm like, did you really have to kill her?
I mean, just because this is dark Man's world and
(33:44):
so everything's so depressing and so sad, So I guess
that's why they wanted to do. It's like, oh, shock
value will kill her, and so like people will lose
their minds that she's going to get into her car
and it will be the end of her, and you know,
and then of course we see you know, dark Man
kind of seemed the the news report in him literally
tipping his hat to her. But I think they could
(34:04):
have done so much more with Jill when it came
to that, because she was uncovering so many things. And yes,
like you said, I think they were also trying to
show the message of how women were sexualized and belittled
when it came to the nineties and when it came
to a job like an investigative reporter, whether you know,
her boss wants to put her on such trivial things
as fake orgasms, because like a woman can't do this,
(34:26):
you know, she's supposed to be doing these little puff pieces.
And but I do like her her style and you know,
her sass that she has because she doesn't care. She
wants to do this thing, and so she just goes
down her married little way and incredibly is able to
keep her job. More power to her, because then I guess,
you know, the big boss comes down, going good job, Jill,
and So's like, bag your boss and goes on her
(34:47):
married little way. And then I think they want to
make her a little bit They want to make her
a little bit edgy. The fact that you know she's
always smoking when it comes to whatever crime scene she's
at may add that little bit of a noir twist
to it where you know she's lighting up every five seconds,
because these days you don't see that very often in
films or TV shows for other reasons like we don't
want you to emulate this because as a smoke of myself, yes,
(35:10):
do not smoke, folks, it's not good for you. But
here I think was like, oh, we're doing, We're gonna
do like almost a fan for Tao noir kind of character.
But then you know she gets killed for the dumbest reasons,
and Peyton has been warning her and Joe is smarter
than this. She's shown us that she's smarter than to
just randomly get in the car like yeah, see you
later love the hat and well this I like, really
(35:32):
like your face, and off she goes. And I think
Laurie's done just as dirty, because you know she was,
you know, doctor Brinkman's sister. We saw they. I think
they were tight as siblings when we when we first
see the two of them, because at first Peyton thinks
she's his girlfriend. She's like, oh, they're very familiar with
each other, and he's like, no, she's my little sister.
(35:53):
But then yeah, it's totally unexplained. What does this woman
do on a regular basis? Does she own the club?
Is it just as she has this property? How does
she make a living? I guess she probably has. She's
probably a co owner in a in a strip club possibly,
which I think also shows you maybe what the writers
thought of certain women. It's like, well, they're good for
let's have her run a strip club. It's fine, and
(36:14):
that way we can show scantily clad women while we're
at it. So that might have been the case. But
I do think that the fact that she gets trapped
so easily, and once again nobody listens to Peyton. He's like,
this guy is bad news. Be careful. Neither Jill nor Laurie,
who once again I think are smarter than this. Don't
(36:35):
listen until it's too late. At least Laurie made it
out alive. I'm glad that the least that was the case,
and she didn't die too, because I don't think we
needed both female characters to be killed on this film.
So I'm glad that at least at least she made
it through so and it was it was nice to
see somebody like like Renee O'Connor in this, knowing her
from other projects which I might be referring to when
(36:57):
we get to recommendations. So let's round off our characters
with our villain. We have talked about him a little
bit so during the course of this review, whose name
is also in the title, We have the very talented
Larry Drake reprising his role as Robert J. Durant. So
what did you make of Durant in this one?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I mean he was good enough, and I don't mean
it in a bad way, because the actor, he's actually
a good actor. What I mean is he did just enough.
He somehow was in a coma, as they just gloss
over in the beginning, wakes up and he's taking these
pills and he's walking with a cane. We have no
(37:37):
idea what these pills are for, and maybe like nitro
glittering for his heart. I don't again, I don't know it.
Just he starts yelling at somebody AND's like, oh, give
me my pills and takes a pill and magically he's good.
Which that's one of those things that has always irked
me as a person who you knows taking a pill
for like a headache, it does not work that fast,
(38:01):
Like you don't take the pill and you're like, oh cool,
let's go back to what we're doing and like go
jump over a building like you're laid up for a
hot minute, Like you're gonna sit down and be like,
uh like hang on, give me a minute, Like you're
gonna be distrut for intel like kicks in, which is
usually you know, however, even in a quick dissolve was
like a minute or two. He's just like all right,
pop a pill and go back to yelling at the
guys like okay, no big deal. And his plan isn't
(38:26):
much different than this, say the first movie, Like it's
literally like we want this building to do sketchy shit
in and the guys were like, hey, we've done We've
branched down into all these other things we're doing, like
drugs and so on and so forth. He's like, I
want to go back into guns, guns work what like seriously,
like he just doctor evil this where they're like, look,
(38:48):
we're a billion dollar company. He's like, I want to
take over the world. It's like we're doing that now,
Like calm yourself. So like his whole plan was just
very like ill conceived. It's like, we're gonna make guns
better than everybody else, and then he makes a space laser,
Like how did we get here. You're like, we're gonna
make better quality guns and everybody has, you know, glock
(39:11):
nines or fifteen's or AK forty seven. You're like, okay,
we're gonna make them better space guns. Like fuck what
that made a hard left and no pun intended with
that one, and then they happened to go He somehow
knows of a dude who's in an asylum who made
the space gun, which even boggles my mind because they
(39:33):
don't explain that at all, just like hey, I'm gonna
break you out because I knew you were here. How
I don't know we're just it's a thing, we're not
gonna talk about it. And the applot thread that they
totally missed out on was the warehouse they were trying
to take over. The guy they killed. He even says
(39:53):
something to dark Man about how his father or grandfather
or whoever it was, invented this tiny power supply that
could you know, power the world for an hour and
a half or whatever the silliness was at the time,
and they just completely like glossed over that story point
where that could have actually been the whole purpose of
this movie. Why he wants a specific warehouse opposed to
(40:15):
I want to make guns, like okay. And then he
breaks out a guy who happens to have said gun,
and they just have at it immediately, and this goes
back to the common sense thing. They test the gun
and blow something up. It's not on the news, which
would have been great segue for our anchor to you know,
(40:37):
kind of be you know, doing things in the background,
even if she's reporting on mysterious explosions or whatever the
case may be. All the doctor there mad scientists like
it curs to the left, I should fix that, like okay,
And then conveniently they have the the x KGB guy
(40:57):
who's like, in my country, we'd make nuclear reactors for spaceships.
He ether have one like man that's convenient because there
was literally just bitching twenty minutes ago about power supplies
and he's like, look what I have, Big bat thirty,
like all right, let's go. Well, it's just the convenience
of a lot of things happening here is just like ridiculous.
(41:19):
And then when Durant finally figures out that dark Man
is still alive, he becomes unhinged about dark Man as well.
Like the two women like have this pathological like must
kill each other. And again dark Man just needed like
gone for sack and gone and could have shot the
dude from like a million miles away and ended the
movie in like twenty minutes, but no, we need to
(41:41):
break into his organization played dress up forty seven times
because he just keeps all those masks in his cloak
of endlessness or whatever. And like when they see each other,
and it gets funny almost because when they do see
each other and realize that they are who they are,
like they both just turn into like rayby driven crazy
(42:04):
dogs and they're just like, go have ad it with
each other, which I will say that was a little entertaining,
but just the let's sell gun like let's make better
guns and then turns into space guns and then we're
gonna sell them to extremists, and it's like, where did
that even come from? You could have literally just sold
them to another government and we all been like, all right, cool,
(42:27):
let's go. He's like, nope, let's sell them to the Yazis,
and you're like, all right, that's the thing, Like they're
just the weird jumping in the logic. His logic is
just and I get it, he's got that big scar,
so clearly he is not operating with a full deck,
but just the jumps in his plan are wild, Like
(42:48):
where did you get the contact with the Yazis that
happened to have this money and all these other things,
because clearly you have connections to Russia and the KGB.
This dude could have hooked you up with literally anybody.
So it just I don't know it. It's one of
(43:09):
those that seemed like a good idea and they just
didn't know how to pull all the strings together. Because
again there was that plot point with the small battery
that the kid's grandfather, I think was designing and then
just communiately had Russia just had apparently like a footlock
or fall of these, so it's like the guy's got
to pick a lean. So there was potential. I just
(43:31):
think they didn't know which string to pull on and
where to go with the story, so they just kind
of at the time in the nineties, there was a
lot of tensions with extremist groups, so they figured let's
go with what's hot, and that was what was hot
at the time.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
In fact, I was wondering about that because at first
it was like, I never thought white supremacists were that wealthy.
But I suppose, you know, because we have our guy
in the suits bankrolling them. I suppose, you know, because
he tries he's the kind of the more presentable of our
extreme group. But I'm like, wow, I didn't realize there
were you know, and this might be me being krabby naive,
(44:10):
that there's somebody in the higher ups bank rolling extreme groups,
which I would not be surprised if that were the case.
But he was like, Okay, these are white supremacists and
the guy has truckloads of money that he can happily
roll around. He's like, how many millions do you want
for your space guns? And so he literally just comes
along with these suitcases packed for the money. Believe it's like,
I know, like a hundred million or something or something
(44:31):
along with.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Good five million per gun.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
There you go, you know, So there's just a ridiculous
amount of money. So, as I said, I guess this
guy might be might have brought into he once again
trying to read too much into this, made this high
roller is also a white supremacist and wants these guys
to succeed. And so he's like our bankroll you are
you know, what's a couple of million between friends, and
(44:55):
so he's just like throwing this money all over the
place because he wants these guns. So I, like you said,
at the time, with these these tensions within with these
extreme groups, that's was maybe what they were trying to
say here is if you know, if you're not careful,
there might be the wrong people, you know, financing these
groups and trying to make take over the country or
(45:18):
take over the world. And yes, these weapons were absolutely
ridiculous and the special effects were just as bad. Unfortunately,
thirty years on they have not aged well at all.
And yes, there's this I also found, you know, to
your point, it's it is really hilarious when Durant and
Peyton see each other and he's like wrestler and he's
(45:41):
like drowned, and it's like, why are you yelling at
each other like this? I get it, it's the nineties
and it's cheesy, but really is every time you see
each other, are you going to be yelling each other's
last names? I guess so. And also what I what
I you know, what I thought was it was hilarious
on its head was last time we saw he'd crashed
(46:01):
his helicopter into a bridge, so there's usually no coming
back from that. Yes, this is a superhero movie, so
of course even the villain can come come unscathed from
something as major as helicopter exploding. And you know, he's
perfectly fine. I guess maybe he has a top notch
(46:21):
surgeon who's able to stitch him up. That's why, like
you said, he's got a little scar on his face,
so he was. You know, the guy did a fantastic
job for the nineties to where his face is in
almost mint condition. But already he was unhinged in the
first film, and he had a little bit. He had
this specish of cutting people's fingers off and collecting them here. Yeah,
he's gone even crazier when in the way he behaves
(46:44):
and everything else. And I'm sure that, yes, his his
major concussion definitely did not help with that. But as
I said before, I did appreciate what Larry brought to
this role. And like you've said, Keith, he has he
is known for multiple things and no surprises. Very unique
voice is suddenly a lot of people remember because he
has and he has a lot of voice work. You know,
(47:04):
you folks might remember him sounding like Johnny Bravo, where
he provided quite a few voices on there. So yeah,
I think he's just as unhinged of a villain that
we need for a film like this, which is already
and I've used this word multiple times take a drink,
ridiculous just for just everything that the premise and such.
And yeah, they don't really pick a lane. It's oh,
(47:25):
we're using these space guns, but we don't have a
power source. Oh, so we're going to buy off this
guy and use his resources. Oh, Russian dude here has
the perfect power supply for these guns. There's so much
convenience in this film. Granted it's not particularly long film.
I believe it's roughly about ninety minutes or so, so
I guess they had to just rush it over and
(47:48):
maybe thought themselves, we're not really going to do something
major story. We're just going to do a popcorn flick
that people will enjoy. And probably that's, you know, to
your point the right said, maybe we're reading too much
into it, and it was just supposed to be sit back,
shove popcorn in your mouth and just watch the insanity unfold.
So I but I was glad that at least Larry
(48:10):
did reprise his role as Durant, even though we weren't
able to get to Liam to reprise his role as
dark Man. So so that that is I think the
saving grace of it. So anything else you would like
to add on this movie that we might not have
touched upon before we get to ratings.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I actually there's one thing is what are the odds
two guys are working on the same thine thinetic skin
at the same time in the same town, like statistically,
like how is that possible? Agree? And also why did
the dude not have security in his high security lab
if he's working on this like super secret crap, Like
(48:48):
he's just like doors on lock, come on in, who
wants a beer? Like what? No, like call the cops,
have security, like change the locks, put on locks anything. Nope,
none of that.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
New York in the nineties, as we know, not the
not the safest place to be. And and also I
think it might once again play into the naivete of
he's just so enamored with his science he doesn't care like, oh,
somebody might just come in the middle of the night
and shoot me and steal my staff. But I guess
that never crosses his mind. So because I guess he's
(49:22):
just so you know, literally so engrossed in what he's
doing that he's not paying attention to that. But yeah,
I think it speaks to once again the lack of
all roundedness of our characters and the major naivete that
so many characters should not have, but here we are,
so I guess. Then getting to ratings, Keith, what do
(49:42):
you give this Dark Man's sequel out of ten?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
The air about that, I'm gonna have to give it
a seven out of ten. It's it's passable, but it's
not rewatchable.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
That's that's totally fair. I'm there with you. I'm also
gonna give this seven out of ten. I was glad
I saw it. Am I going to rewatch it? Probably not.
If I'm going to rewatch a dark dark Man movie,
it will be the OG from way back when. So
but as I said, perfor, I'm glad we watched it,
and you know, for once, I suppose it was a
(50:18):
first viewing for both of us, I mean, Branton, not
the most pleasant, but still we found a movie that
neither of that of us had yet seen. So there
is that, So I guess then getting to recommendations, is
there anything you'd like to recommend to the class this week?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, I'm gonna go with a bunch of random movies,
but there's gonna be a trend here. So if you
want to see somebody get horrifically disapgared and become a badass,
check out the original Swamp Thing and the sequel Swamp
Thing too, because that is all about scientists doing dumb
stuff without doors with locks. That's the best way I
can explain it. Uh. Spawn from ninety seven, that's another
(50:57):
one with let's depray somebody and see what happens. And
then you got the original RoboCup. You're gonna sense a
trend here. Everybody gets burned to a crisp here and
then comes back and becomes a crazy badass. A movie
that immediately popped the mind was V for Vendetta. You
couldn't hit that nail any harder in the head if
you tried with a sledgehammer. And yeah, I think I'm
(51:19):
gonna save my other ones for a rainy day.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
Well, those are great recommendations. As always, I guess you
covered the beasts, I will cover the beauty then. So
for those who have not seen it, if you want
to see Renee O'Connor in a role that I think
pretty much was her claim to fame, check out of course,
Zena Warrior Princess, where she of course played Zena's sidekick Gabrielle.
(51:44):
So I you know, that was a favorite show of
mine as a kid growing up. I was big on
the Adventures of Hercules, which was kind of a companion
piece of that, and they would cross over from time
to time. So if you have not yet seen it
and they're able to track it down, check out Zena
Warrior Princess. You have Renee O'Connor and Lucy lawless playing
the titular character and if you enjoy your swords and
(52:05):
sandals and a little bit of Greek mythology, very random
Greek mythology, mind you, but still very entertaining and very
much of its time, I would I would put at
the top of the list zena warrior princess. So, of course,
dear listeners, if you want to share your thoughts on
the films we discuss here, you know what to do.
You can should email to Happiness and Darkness how at
(52:27):
gmail dot com. Once again, Happiness and Darkness How at
gmail dot com. If you're not doing so already, be
sure to follow us on our social media on Facebook,
Wagon Finances Happiness and Darkness and of course on x
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(52:48):
Podcasts and Dora you name it, shoulder rate and review
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show to reach more like mindears like yours. So big,
thank you to those who have done so in the future,
Thank you to those who will so keith when you're
not giving amazing recommendations on a weekly basis. To our
list is in providing fantastic insights on this podcast, where
(53:11):
cand folks find you on the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Well, currently I'm designing my gingerbread house for our Christmas competition.
That usually takes me a good three or four months.
You'd be surprised how much gingerbread you go through designing
those things, but you know, you know, it's tough, but
somebody's got to do it. Plus, the dogs love gingerbread,
so you know when I'm not doing that, you can
find me on obviously here with you. I was on
(53:35):
Star Trek the Underscovered podcast a couple times this year
Gold Standards with you? Was that this year or last year?
And then a couple other fun pug was it this year?
Speaker 3 (53:46):
It was last year?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
This year is going by so fast, fans, it's already
almost October, so it's just wild that we're gonna be
twenty twenty six soon enough. And then obviously, when you
can't find me on here, you can always find us.
Find me on our Facebook page, drop a comment, question,
concern whatever. I'm always runing to talk about combooks, cartoons, lions, tigers,
and Bears.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Fantastic stuff and yes, sir Keith, you will be making
your return to the gold Standard Theater sooner rather than later.
And when it comes to me, folks, before we get
into that, you can find my day job hosting the
radio show Whiskey and Cigarettes, where we play the very
best and nothing but the best of country music for
you guys from Malabama to Zach Brown. With more information
about that, you can visit our website which is Whiskey
(54:31):
and Cigarettes show dot com. Podcast Wise, as Keith kindly
mentioned and was brought up earlier in the course of
this episode, you can find myself, Zan Sprouse and Rachel
Friend on gold Standard the oscars podcast, where we have
reviewed all the best Picture winning movies in chronoledge order
as we wait for the ninety eighth Best Picture read
itself and not that long to go. Actually, time flies.
(54:53):
As Keith was reminding us, we are now reviewing movies
that we have picked and we also have returning in
you guest co hosts like Keith bring their favorite movies
to the gold Standard Theater. Recently, Maureen van Zandt joined
us and her pick was rock Star starring, of course,
Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. Coming up next, we're going
to be keeping the musical trender continuing. As of this week,
(55:17):
we are going to be reviewing a movie that I picked,
and surprise, surprise, the movie that I have selected is
Spice World, So we get to talk some Spice Girls
and enjoy some good old music from the nineties once again.
And I'm sure that my sister will probably be very
proud of me. I guess when I was berating her
and deriding her for enjoying the Spice Girls. So that's
(55:39):
we're going to be doing there. Speaking of music, because
there is quite quite a good selected tracks on that.
Myself and Charles Skaggs can be found on the fandom
Zone podcast where we're currently reviewing the second season of Peacemaker.
And yes, so if you're fans of what Charles review
refers to as trailer park rock, you definitely get your
(55:59):
share when it comes to that and self, that's been
a rather good season, I would say, and when it
comes to this show, folks. And next time we are
going to be reviewing, we're going to be closing out
the dark Man trilogy by reviewing the nineteen ninety six
Bradford May film once again, Die dark Man, Die Man three.
(56:19):
So uh, Keith, anything you'd like to add on our
next movie or anything else before we sun off, because
I believe you have seen this one.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, I have seen this one. I vaguely remember bits
of it. It has been several decades, so it'll be
interesting to have a rewatch of this one.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
I have not seen this one, so I'm looking forward
to I guess saying farewell for the moment to dark Man,
unless somebody else decides to pick the property up. So
that said, folks, next time we will see you, of course,
next time with Die dark Man Die. Until then, thank
you so much for listening to the show and supporting us,
and of course thank you for the privilege of your time.
(56:58):
Stay super Shou
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