Cast: Eric Roberts, Phillip Rhee, Christopher Penn, Ralf Moeller, Wayne Newton
Director: Robert Radler
Producers: Peter E. Strauss and Phillip Rhee
Screenplay: Max Strom and John Allen Nelson
Cinematography: Fred Tammes
Music: David Michael Frank
U.S. Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Alex (Eric Roberts) and Tommy (Phillip Rhee) are martial arts experts (last seen in the uninspired Best of the Best). When one of their friends is killed in an underground pit-fight against the sadistic, bloodthirsty brute Brakus (Ralf Moeller), the situation becomes personal. Alex and Tommy are determined to get Brakus -- if he doesn't get them first, that is.
Best of the Best 2 is a shameless celebration of blood and violence -- a human cockfight with little style and no subtlety. In many films of this nature, the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the protagonists let the defeated villains live (and presumably face a court hearing), while the antagonists kill everyone in sight. That's not the case here, where good guys and bad guys alike end up (literally) with blood on their hands.
There's never any doubt who's good and who's bad, either. The film goes through an unnecessarily blunt depiction of Brakus as force of pure evil. By the same token, Alex and Tommy are presented as caring people who kill only when pushed. None of this "characterization" is particularly effective, except to show how truly one-dimensional the script -- and the people who populate it -- is. I suppose most people who see this film will be expecting a lot of fight sequences and little else. That's exactly what they get. There's a slight visceral appeal to this sort of material, but it's not enough to do more than momentarily stir the blood. The humor, when intentional, is off-key, and the dialogue is hopelessly mired in banalities.
Watching Best of the Best 2, with a villain who can barely speak English and the death of a friend to motivate events, I was strongly reminded of Rocky IV, the weakest entry of Stallone's saga. One would think that if the film makers wanted to imitate a Rocky movie, they would have chosen one of the better ones.
This film is targeted at a specific audience -- male teenagers. And, given their notorious lack of discrimination, many in that bracket will probably be satisfied. Death and violence have become so commonplace in movies that it's difficult to be shocked by the gratuitous quantities here, especially considering the mercenary motives of those who backed Best of the Best 2. This is a straightforward grab for money with no artistic pretentions, and the shallowness of the experience comes across loud and clear.
© 1993, 1996 James Berardinelli