KINDERGARTEN COP 2 DVD (2016)
SYNOPSIS: Dolph Lundgren and Bill Bellamy star in the hilarious next chapter of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, Kindergarten Cop. To recover stolen data in a progressive school, the FBI's toughest agent (Lundgren) must go undercover on his most difficult assignment yet: teaching a class full of liberal kindergarteners. Kindergarten Cop 2 is an action-packed comedy the whole family will love!
MOVIE REVIEW:
Those who are too young to know might only recognise Dolph Lundgren from The Expendables series but the Sweden-born action star has been around since the 80’s portraying He-Man in Masters of the Universe, fighting alongside the late Brandon Lee in Showdown In Little Tokyo to pairing up with Van Damme in Universal Soldier.
Unfortunately, with action stars liked Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger rising subsequently, Lundgren is largely reduced to DTV duds by the late 90’s. Ironically, he is now tasked with the honor of stepping into Schwarzenegger’s shoes in this reboot of Kindergarten Cop, an outrageous 1990 comedy that unexpectedly works because of the combined magic of Ivan Reitman and Schwarzenegger.
Without Reitman and the original writers at the helm, Kindergarten Cop 2 is simply a disastrous forgettable direct-to-video title. The entire setup is shamelessly copied over except for some contemporary updates liked the frequent mention of a flash drive. The jokes often lacked a comedic vibe and the gags are lame. Watching a class of kindergarten kids suffering from sugar rush isn’t exactly funny and the meanest thing you will see is having a fellow teacher accidentally getting tased in the balls. A therapy pig also makes an appearance. Because this is a PG movie after all.
While Schwarzenegger’s acting range is somewhat limited, he manages to be a tough and endearing sweet guy in the original movie. Lundgren on the other hand just looks dull and bored for the entire screentime even though he gets to romance a female lead (Darla Taylor) who in actual fact is young enough to be her daughter. The movie took like forever to setup that not only Lundgren is bored; we are equally as bored as him.
The story has tough guy FBI agent Lundgren going undercover to search for a missing flash drive containing confidential information on witness protection program. Some Albanian gangsters are also looking for it. Seriously, the whole bunch of them just looks plain silly to pose any real threat to Lundgren and so except for a pathetic gunplay in the beginning which happened in the dark and another silly fist fight in the end, we are practically left with a movie that is missing out on laughs and action.
Kindergarten Cop 2 is one flick that is best left alone. Highly recommended to avoid at all costs.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
As if you need an additional 10 minutes of Deleted Scenes to prolong your agony but here it is. There's also a 2 minutes Gag Reel and Kindergarten Cop 2: Undercover is your typical EPK featurette.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Dialogue is clear and other than a couple of loud gunshots, there's nothing extraordinary about the 5.1 audio track. Colour reproduction and facial details are generally servicable for this DTV title.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
