by Brendan Foley
Two Cents
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Democracy is a sucker’s game that will forever be corrupted by the infantile, the destructive, and the foolish.
Hence, when we put it to our readers to choose what our next film would be, they opted for Kindergarten Cop 2. You monsters.
Starring Dolph Lundgren and from the director of Half Past Dead, Kindergarten Cop 2 imagines a version of Kindergarten Cop without the well-known crack comedic timing and verbal dexterity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It went direct-to-video and Netflix, and then we watched it because, again:
Which recent release are you most interested in participating in (watch & write short review) as a Two Cents pick?
— Cinapse (@CinapseNews) May 19, 2016
So, join us as we partake in the cinematic equivalent of a dumpster filled with turds being set on fire. This used crackpipe of a movie. This cake-made-with-spoiled-milk of a cash-in. This envelope filled with farts. Welcome to Kindergarten Cop 2.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
Marilyn Monroe was a dazzling jewel of the silver screen, and June 1st would have been her 90th birthday. She tragically left this world at the age of 36, but left us with a treasure trove of celebrated classic films. Before she had her most celebrated role in 1959’s Some Like It Hot, Marilyn had previously collaborated with director Billy Wilder on another sexy comedy, which also celebrates its anniversary this week — June 3rd. So in honor of both the starlet and the film, we’re proud to announce our next pick will be The Seven-Year Itch!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Tentative Projected Schedule (Deadlines) of Upcoming Picks:
6/01 — The Seven-Year Itch — https://www.netflix.com/title/60004542
6/08 — The Exorcist — https://www.netflix.com/title/14546619
6/15 — Starbuck — https://www.netflix.com/title/70209149
6/22 — Goosebumps — https://www.netflix.com/title/80049939
6/29 — Terminator 2: Judgment Day — No “free” streaming option — please plan ahead
1/06 — Chuck Norris vs Communism — https://www.netflix.com/title/80039422
Our Guests
Jesse Crump:Kindergarten Cop was a staple of my childhood. Tough guy Arnie was sent to a school and had to play off a classroom of cute kids for an hour and fifty-one minutes. I grew up on it and it will always have a fond place in what is left of my heart.
Then along came the sequel. It tried to recapture the magic of the original, going so far as to have many of the same story beats. The problem is that without any of the people who made the first Kindergarten Cop great, you have a hollow attempt at recapturing the magic. The kids aren’t as cute with modern schooling/parenting styles. Dolph Lundgren doesn’t have the same presence as Arnie and he can’t make one liners sound as good. And the bad guy seems like a hammy parody of a Russian mobster instead of a real threat.
I’m sorry that I voted to make the people at Cinapse watch this movie. Yet, I think we can all agree that the Trojan Horse bit was good. The rest of the movie was bad, but at least it had that one good moment. Right? (@JurassicGriffin)
Trey Lawson:I barely remember Kindergarten Cop. I’m not even sure if I’ve seen it, actually. But that doesn’t really matter, because Kindergarten Cop 2 is that extra special sort of sequel that has virtually nothing to do with its predecessor aside from a title and a slightly similar concept. To say I strongly disliked this film would be an understatement. It’s not that the film is poorly made — the few action scenes are okay for this type of direct to video fare, and aside from some scenes that serve no narrative purpose the writing, directing, and acting are at least competent.
Yet Dolph Lundgren, ostensibly the protagonist, is for most of the film a deeply unsympathetic character. I think the point at which I stopped even trying to like him was when he began ranting at his kindergarten students about their school’s “liberal B.S.” It would be one thing if this was merely the opinion of the character, but much of the film seems devoted to presenting the children and their school as a giant punchline, ridiculing everything from dietary restrictions, vegetarianism, positive reinforcement, conflict resolution, and of course an obligatory scene of the whole class having a collective sugar rush.
Also bizarre (and a little creepy) is the way I which everyone in the film fawns over how hot and muscular the craggy 58-year-old Lundgren is. Men and women all seem enamored by his looks, culminating in his dating a fellow teacher who has to be 30 years younger than him. The weirdness of the film’s emphasis on Lundgren’s attractiveness is epitomized by an entirely unnecessary scene where the faculty and staff of the school (including one poor stereotypical gay man who, let’s be honest, could do much better than aging Dolph Lundgren) bid on him at a date auction.
The thing is, I like Lundgren well enough as an actor. His range is admittedly limited, but in the right roles he can be a lot of fun. Sadly, those roles have been few and far between in recent years, and Kindergarten Cop 2 does nothing to change the trend. He is utterly miscast, and the film’s anti-PC “jokes” strike me as tone-deaf, not to mention a really lazy, lowest common denominator approach to humor. When your action-comedy’s biggest laughs come from Dolph Lundgren line dancing and an obnoxious IT guy getting tased in the crotch, your film is simply not very good. (@T_Lawson)
Jaime Burchardt:My official review. *clears throat* *deep breath* HAAAAAAAAAhahahahahahahaha. I’m not even joking. I’m — hahahahahoooooooohahaha — oh my god this movie is so goddamn awful. SO AWFUL. So, so stupid. And that’s all this movie’s getting. But I still love you, Dolph. HA. HA. Oh crap I have hiccups now. Yeah it sucks but we had to see this. WE HAD TO. Haaaaahahahaho–whew ok, I need a paper bag. Later, suckers! I hope Trey has nightmares. (@jaimeburchardt)
The Team
Justin:Dolph sure ain’t Arnold, but this isn’t the shitshow that it could have been. The acting is competent, the action sequences are okay, the laughter is… well… there are a couple of chuckle worthy moments.
There is one horribly offensive thing about the film worth noting, however. For “comedic effect”, they use subtitles whenever one little Asian boy speaks. It’s not funny, instead coming off as awful. Perhaps it’s not meant to be funny; but, seeing it’s not hard to understand the child speak, it comes off as petty at best. (@thepaintedman)
Note: Justin wrote a full review of the film earlier this week, which you can read here!
Brendan: A racist, sexist, homophobic nightmare of a film, somehow the most off-putting element of Kindergarten Cop 2 is the way the film constantly stops to remind you that the melted He-Man action figure of a person that is Dolph Lundgren is somehow considered the most desirable possessor of the masculine ideal since Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans were fused together in that tragic teleporter accident. I will give Bill Bellamy points for walking away with his dignity (though a dispiriting number of his punchlines are simply him muttering “white people” at the end of a sentence) but he’s the only one. The rest of this is just flat, boring and bad, not even bugfuck crazy enough to make a drunk viewing worthwhile. And believe you me, I got plenty drunk trying to make through every last one of the hundred fucking minutes this abomination runs. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Austin:I have to admit that, conceptually, the idea “Dolph Lundgren in Kindergarten Cop 2” sounds pretty intriguing. It’s the sort of left-field nuttiness that could really reverberate if they took it in a wacky enough direction to really take advantage of the (let’s face it) absurd novelty. In the right hands, I’d wager it could be really, really good.
These were not the right hands.
As everyone has stated, the film suffers from bad acting (that police captain, holy smokes!), lame jokes, and a weak story that, at its best, cribs from the original. But to me the biggest problem was that it was just so darn tame. The original film had some teeth on it: peril and drama peppering the comedy for an exhilarating mix. If they wanted to go this route, they really should have dropped the “bagina” joke and just made it a PG-rated flick for the kids. I mean, that’s still a bad idea, but at least there’s a target audience that way.
I did smirk a bit at the skewering of politically correct education and parenting, but that’s in no way enough to redeem this awful movie. (@VforVashaw)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!