The Fly II (Special Edition) 1989 Fox Home Entertainment   Buy It Now

Usually, any time a studio has a successful film under its belt, the next move is to release a sequel to bring in more box office dollars. There have been times that may years have passed between the original release and the follow up, but as the case usually is, high gross can almost assure that a sequel will be seen within a year. David Cronenburg impressed fans and even critics with his retelling of the classic film (and story) The Fly, but Cronenburg hasn't really been the type to do sequels. The Fly II however carries on with that Cronenburg started.

The film begins a few months after the conclusion of The Fly with Veronica in the hospital giving birth the Seth's baby and dies during childbirth (don't worry, Geena Davis isn't in the film, and this is probably why Veronica is killed.) The baby, Martin, is taken into protective custody by Bartok Industries, the same company who now happens to be in possession of Seth's original telepod's and is trying to master how they work.

Martin is a little different. He ages much faster than a normal child and reaches his early 20's within five years. He also is a brilliant child, something that is very apparent early on and is always under the watchful eye of Bartok himself (Lee Richardson) as well as his staff. Eventually Martin (Eric Stoltz) is allowed to live on his own, though he is still secretly being watched, and even begins work on his father's invention. He meets Beth (Daphne Zuniga) another employ at Bartok Industries and the two begin to fall in love, but soon Martin learns about what happened with his father and that the same thing may be happening to him and decides to escape and find a cure . . . . . only to be brought back. And then. . . . . something terrible is unleashed.

As far as sequels go, The Fly II isn't that bad of a follow up film and takes a slightly different direction than that of the original film. In some ways, I would assume this film was created to fill in some of the details, such as what becomes of Veronica and her baby, and fortunately the easy way out wasn't take, meaning that there wasn't some dramatic return of Seth Brundle. The idea of the baby growing at an exponential rate isn't new, but it's well done.

As with the first film, blood and gore isn't used as the necessity here, though you will find plenty of it. This begins with Martin discovering the horrible truth about what Bartok has been up to, including the grisly transformation of his beloved dog, but even Martin will undergo this same metamorphosis. We see this towards the end of the film as Martin falls under the same curse as his father, but it becomes even more horrific and much more violent. One very important thing is brought up however and it is that this change into the "man-fly" is leading up to something else, but that's all that you'll get from me if you haven't already seen the film.

A good deal of the film explores Seth's original invention and the attempts to finally get it to work correctly and this also brings the relationship between Martin and Beth into the plot as well. It's a fairly good balance I suppose. Beth doesn't know about Martin's father though, at least not at first, nor the fate that could eventually befall him. When this does finally emerge though, it has some similarities to the original film and Beth will stick by Martin no matter what. The film though could have worked as well without having the typical love interest included, and this is something that you will also find is addressed, in a round about way, in the additional features.

The Fly II odes end up becoming quite a bit more graphic and gory than the original. There really were just a few minutes at the end of the first film that focused on the horrible powers of the fly, but in the sequel, it's more that just what the fly is capable of in terms of abilities. The fly seen in this movie is much more brutal and animalistic. It will kill almost anyone who gets in its way, though we see some compassion as Martin will not harm a dog or Beth. Heads getting crushed by heavy machinery becomes part of the gore and the new look of the fly in this film is more hideous that in Cronenburg's version.

This new special edition of the film comes with plenty of additional material not found with the original DVD release. The first disc has commentary by the films director, Chris Walas, and film historian Bob Burns that is very informative. There is a deleted scene as well as an alternate ending for the movie, though I have to say that I'm much more pleased with the ending that found its way to theaters. The second DVD is packed with more features, and at first glance it may seem like there isn't much here, but there really is. There are two different documentaries, one that features Walas talking about different aspects of the movie that runs for nearly an hour, and another that does a comparison to the different Fly movies that have been made, and this feature also runs for roughly an hour. There are three different featurettes that include a teaser for the film, a production journal, and even some background on the music that is heard in the movie. There is also a comparison to the storyboard and the film with commentary, a collection of still photos and the original trailers for the movie.

It's really hard to say which film I like better. At first, I wasn't too taken in by The Fly II, but as what I saw began to sink in, I realized that while there are some minor flaws, it's really not a bad movie. Thankfully this wasn't a movie series that ended up having endless sequels created for it that would appear in theaters or go straight to video, and having just two movies really tells the full story. Things don't need to go beyond this point, and they never have (though there is a remake of The Fly coming soon.) If you liked The Fly, The Fly II is just as good a movie, perhaps superior in some ways, and since the last DVD release saw both movies on one DVD, having both special editions in your collection would be the best choice.

-mike-