Foreshadowing Liam Neeson’s unlikely pivot from stately thespian to action hero, 1990’s Darkman had topped the U.S. box office, grossed more than three times its $14 million budget, and become a regular fixture on cable TV. So the Fox network no doubt believed its follow-up — even if it had bypassed cinemas and headed straight to VHS — would at least provide some healthy competition for the 1998 MLB All-Star Game screened by NBC. Instead, it achieved not just one but two all-time ratings lows.
Darkman II: The Return of Durant premiered on television almost three years to the day it first hit video rental stores — interestingly Blockbuster, who’d been integral in the original’s rental success, had practically begged Universal to make a sequel. Yet by posting a disastrous 2.8 rating and 5 share, it ended up breaking Fox’s records for worst ever performance for both a film and a Tuesday night. Its catastrophic prime time showing, however, doesn’t quite reflect its quality.
Sure, with TV movie veteran Bradford May in the driving seat instead of visual storyteller Sam Raimi (this time serving as executive producer), the caper inevitably lacks its predecessor’s noirish flair. And even when covered in bandages, Neeson displayed more charisma than a fully exposed Arnold Vosloo, the downgrade of a leading man often struggling to hide his South African accent as well as convey any sense of human emotion. One can only presume Raimi regular Bruce Campbell, who made a last-second face-swap cameo in the first Darkman, was otherwise engaged.
Nevertheless, it still makes the most of the modest $4 million at its disposal with several eye-catching set pieces: See the disloyal minion thrown from a skyscraper in a golf cart or the entire building obliterated by a single laser. Fans may also notice how it repurposes footage and the soundtrack from the original, too. And thanks to the returning Larry Drake, it boasts a fantastically villainous turn which deserves to go down in the superhero books.
The L.A. Law favorite commands attention from the opening scene where we discover his dastardly crime lord Robert G. Durant somehow survived Darkman’s helicopter explosion with barely a scratch. Keen to make up for lost time after having spent 878 days in a coma, he quickly assembles a motley crew of felons — even breaking Hathaway (Lawrence Dane), a mad scientist blatantly modeled on Back to the Future’s Doc, out of prison — for a new scheme selling particle-beam weapons to neo-Nazis. “Mr. Durant, you have revolutionized the right to bear arms,” gushes a nefarious businessman. “In this case, the far right to bear arms,” comes one of countless one-liner retorts.
Darkman is only alerted to Durant’s resurfacing when his gang fatally torture (including force feeding frogs!) Brinkman (Jesse Collins), a scientist who’d refused to sell the city’s only lab capable of powering their evildoing. Having previously agreed to help him improve the photosensitivity barrier of his synthetic skin prototype beyond 99 minutes, the hero takes this murder personally and vows to seek vengeance on his cockroach-like nemesis once again.
Darkman, still scuttling around New York’s underground tunnels, is assisted on his quest by Jill Randall (Kim Delaney), a go-getting TV reporter determined to expose Durant as a homicidal maniac. Although there’s a frisson of chemistry between the pair, the film admirably swerves the temptation to shoehorn in a romantic subplot. That said, it doesn’t particularly serve its two main female characters of note particularly well, bumping off Jill in a car bombing and reducing Brinkman’s grieving sister Laurie (Renee O’Connor) to the role of damsel-in-distress.
Still, even the most multi-layered heroine would struggle to upstage Durant, clearly having a blast as a man with an almost comical disregard for human life. “Well, I think we've all learned an important safety lesson here,” he deadpans after an electrocuted henchman gets violently blasted through a door. Then there’s the mission statement which Gordon Gekko would be proud of (“I abhor violence, especially when it doesn't make me money”), providing further evidence of his unique entrepreneurial manner.
Even during the final showdown, when he’s witnessed Darkman dispatching every single one of his foolishly loyal goons, he can’t resist throwing in a zinger. “All I had to do was dangle the right bait in front of what's left of your nose,” he taunts his nemesis shortly before his own getaway drive is blown to smithereens.
Sadly, 1996’s trilogy closer Die Darkman Die, which although released later was actually shot first in the same Toronto summer, couldn’t find a way to resurrect the antagonist once again. Instead, megalomaniacal duties went to Jeff Fahey’s crazed drug dealer in a campier Face/Off-esque tale. And sadly, despite both Neeson and Raimi expressing interest in a reboot, that’s the last we’ve seen of the cult franchise, too.
The fact its finale posted an even lower rating when aired by Fox in 1999, not forgetting a scrapped small-screen pilot seven years earlier, has no doubt deterred TV from going anywhere near it since. But while the dismal viewing figures would suggest otherwise, Darkman’s second outing is still worthy of eyeballs.
