F/X2

I can't help but think that the success of "Home Alone" contributed to the creation of "F/X2." "F/X2" was an adult version of "Home Alone." The special effects were fewer while the booby traps were more. It was OK I just couldn't help but think I was watching "Home Alone 6: Kevin Has a Job."

Decent if somewhat belated(5 years??) followup to the '86 suprise hit, has Dennehy and Brown in fine form, some involved monkey business with Vatican medallions, bad cops and computer records. You gotta like the MacGyver-ish stuff they throw in, the indestructible hit-man and of course, That Clown. The Fighting, Animitronic Klown. Quite funny in it's way.

This thing is def. tongue in cheek, at little on the confusing side if you try to think about the flips and flops in the plotting; but hey-it's all in fun. Dated but good.

**1/2 outta ****.

Special effects genius Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is lured back into the world of creating illusion in "F/X2" also starring Brian Dennehy and Rachel Ticotin.

It's five years since Rollie quit the film business; now he's a toy-maker with a new girlfriend, Kim (Ticotin). When Kim's ex-husband, Mike (Tom Mason), a police officer, asks for Rollie's help in catching a killer, he reluctantly agrees.

Through no fault of Rollie's, Mike ends up dead and Rollie has the proof that Mike was set up. This puts Rollie in danger - deja vu. He makes a desperate call to Leo, and the two team up again.

This time around, the plot is a somewhat far-fetched, the emphasis being more on action. There are some very exciting scenes as well as some ingenious toys, including a toy clown that figures prominently in the plot.

Brown and Dennehy have incredible chemistry. They're a joy to watch. My old classmate, Josie DeGuzman (here spelled Josie) is back as Leo's secret weapon in the department. Being predominantly a theater actress, her performance is somewhat stagy but she's no less likable. Joanna Gleason plays an assistant DA.

Clever effects, the great re-teaming of Brown and Dennehy, and very entertaining.

F/X 2 turned out to be a better sequel that I was expecting, as a result of what I had heard people say about it over the years. I was glad to see Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy share more scenes together this time around (they only had one in the first film), and I was also surprised that the story was pretty good, in the same league as the first. Sure, some parts were predictable (nearly every film has got some predictability to it), but for the most part, it was nicely-paced with some good suspense and mystery. I was hoping for a better usage of special effects by the characters (after all, the series is called F/X), but Brown pretty much just MacGyvers his way through the film, especially in the supermarket sequence, one of the film's standout scenes. My personal favorite was the scene in Brown's apartment, where he uses an animatronic remote-controlled clown to handle an assassin (who, like Cliff DeYoung in the first film, mysteriously vanishes from the movie without a trace), and the battle at the mansion at the end of the film is pretty exciting, with Brown making use of a bunch of effects equipment to stop the bad guys. All-in-all, a pretty decent sequel that has me torn between which of the two films I like more. I really can't decide. I know it's been eleven years, and since this one apparently didn't perform as well at the box office as the first one did, I doubt we'll ever see an F/X 3, but I wouldn't mind seeing it.

The original F/X was a moderately successful movie. It certainly wasn't anything great but it did have unmistakable quirkiness in regards to how it approached the action genre. This sequel took five years to follow it, which does seem quite slow by the standards of the day. It teamed up the duo of Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy again, the former playing the lead character, special effects artist Rollie Tyler.

The film opens once again with another amusing opening that turns out to be a film-within-a-film, featuring a transvestite alien lunatic. The story kicks into gear when Rollie's police detective friend is killed on a sting he was roped into. He has evidence of foul play though, so he joins forces with his private investigator buddy to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. Truthfully, the story is not very good and ultimately is only there to serve as a means to connect various action and jovial banter scenes together. In fairness, like the first movie, there are some entertainingly different action scenes to enjoy. Especially good was the robot clown fight, which was a refreshingly different way to approach an action movie punch up; also amusing was the shop sequence where the bad guy is finally dispatched when he has his head mechanically cellophaned like a supermarket chicken! But all-in-all, irrespective of these occasional original moments, F/X 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion is nothing to get too excited about. It's a passably entertaining action flick and no more really.