In
“The Fly II,” Cronenberg buzzes off to better films, and we’re stuck with Chris
Walas – the makeup guy on the first film – as director of a “Like Father, Like
Son” spookfest. Let’s give it points: “Fly II” flies in a different
direction as Martin, the mutant flyboy of Goldblum’s scientist and Davis’ reporter, is
raised inside a mega-corp lab, and as a 20-year-old (really 5) falls in love, all flowers and dancing sweet. Sure as hell, though, we get a grisly transformation and all goes to shit fast with bad visual effects
and a LOL “Alien” rip off as Marty McFly (tee-hee!) goes on a bender
against his surrogate Mr. Burns daddy, so boring bad, he could be a 1970s Disney
villain. Lee Richardson is the old man, and Eric Stoltz – he did “Mask” before
this – is young Martin. It’s all a maggot baby so unworthy of Cronenberg I wanted to take a rolled-up magazine and
… well, you know. C
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Fly (1986) and The Fly II (1989)
David
Cronenberg’s nightmare love story horror flick “The Fly” is mad genius, sickly
twisted, and lets Jeff Goldblum spin gold as a loner nerd scientist named Seth
Brundle who wants to change the world as we know it. He doesn’t, but sure as
hell changes his own corner when a teleportation experiment goes wrong and he
zaps himself and a house fly from one souped-up self-built transport pod to
another, two go in, one comes out. Cronenberg fires on all bloody cylinders,
starting with a romance between Goldblum and Geena Davis as a reporter, then sci-fi
fantasy, then body horror as Seth morphs to a superman assured he has jumped
the evolutionary ladder to mad man when his body starts falling apart, and becoming
... another. Twenty-six years on “Fly” still shocks with Goldblum’s
transformation under makeup, and then the stop-motion creatures that replace
him. The lines are cheesy – “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” – but the visuals burn
deep, as does Cronenberg’s obsession with dying and disease. Last note: Mr. C must
release a director’s cut soon: Check out a cut scene on YouTube, as Seth makes
a monkey-cat as part of his own healing scheme shown later. Insane. A
Labels:
1986,
1989,
classic,
David Cronenberg,
Eric Stoltz,
father,
Geena Davis,
gore,
horror,
Jeff Goldblum,
Lee Richardson,
remake,
romance,
science,
sequel,
son,
The Fly,
The Fly II
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