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not horrible nor great

Dreadfully Boring

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

This is an awesome action film with great performances by Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy. Its fast paced action packed and full of great special f/x hence the name. I started to hear about this movie and f/x 1 about a year ago and it sounded interesting so a few months ago I went to fye and bought it and I loved it. I recommend this and F/X to all action fans. F/X is available on 1 DVD and 1 blue-ray and F/X2 is available on 1 DVD. You can find them for cheap on ebay. Although this film is underrated I think it is really awesome and that action fans would love this. If you like the movies there is also a TV series. FX2 is also known as the Deadly Art of Illusion so if you find a movie under that title it is FX2.

Retired special effects man Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) agrees to help trap a killer for the NYPD. The killer is caught and shot dead but a policeman also is killed. The police believe the killer was the one who did it--but Rollie was watching it on a hidden camera and caught someone else doing it. It eventually leads to hired killers going after Rollie and his girlfriend...so Rollie asks old pal Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) for help.Long delayed (5 YEARS!) sequel to "F/X" was basically ignored when it came out...but it's not bad. The story is a little needlessly convoluted but I was never bored. There are multiple twists and turns...especially at the end that caught me off guard. The action sequences are long, exciting and LOTS of fun (one with a clown was so out there it was almost surreal!). There is also some welcome humor that's actually funny (courtesy of Dennehy). However this movie has problems. The basic plot makes little sense--Brown would agree to help the cops again after what happened in the first picture? And, in a particularly stupid scene, Brown and Dennehy have a killer trapped under a truck...and drive away and let him go! Also there's a mean streak in here with some pretty bloody killings with sympathetic characters being killed and a kid and his mom being threatened at gunpoint. Still, if you ignore these lapses, this is a fun movie worth catching.

The glaring shortcoming of F/X 2 is that the main thrust of the plot, i.e. the what and why of the baddies, is not revealed until an hour or so into the film. At 109 minutes, that's well over half-way. Certainly the point was to pop our main character, Rollie Tyler (reprised by Bryan Brown from the first movie), into a life and death situation beyond his comprehension, and not until several clues are followed revealed that he (and we) find out what these circumstances are.Briefly, Rollie, the Australian special effects wizard, is hired again by the FBI to aid in cornering a serial killer. However, the plan goes awry when the FBI man who was supposed to stop the suspect in his tracks is killed by another unknown killer. Rollie finds himself also caught in a web of intrigue. And of course, when he is on the verge of getting snuffed out, Dennehy as Leo McCarthy pops in to save his ass. Not a bad opening, all things considered.Finally, Leo uncovers the back story, which I won't reveal, lest I be accused of "giving it away" as they say. However, the back story is described almost offhandedly, without even a flashback. Unfortunately, the downside is that, with very little screen time left, neither the history of what's behind the bad guys' motivations nor the bad guys themselves are ever fully developed. I found myself wanting to know more about the circumstances surrounding this back story, the what and the why. Of course, with these kinds of movies, a lot of screen time must be devoted to the baddies chasing the innocent by-standers in shopping malls or in car chases. I guess it's a Hollywood law that American filmmakers must devote a specified minimum amount of time to choreographed running around and shooting so they can legitimately call their project an "action movie".Still the film has its entertainment value. There is a strange chemistry that exists between Brian Dennehy (reprising his role has Leo McCarthy) and Bryan Brown, and again I wish that had been milked for all its worth. Of course, the most entertaining sequence, like the first installment, is the use of movie effects to thwart the bad guys, which works very well. Maybe I appreciated it as a breath of fresh air from the typical cat and mouse chase with automatic weapons that typically climaxes most of these kinds of films.Still very much in the style of a 1980's action movie, although this was 1991, with the typical rock songs spliced in for good measure. With the exception of the use of the special effects against the baddies at the finale, story-wise it is really the equivalent of a two-part episode of "Simon and Simon" with a larger budget.

Decent if somewhat belated(5 years??) followup to the '86 suprise hit, has Dennehy and Brown in fine form, some involved monkey business with Vatican medallions, bad cops and computer records. You gotta like the MacGyver-ish stuff they throw in, the indestructible hit-man and of course, That Clown. The Fighting, Animitronic Klown. Quite funny in it's way.This thing is def. tongue in cheek, at little on the confusing side if you try to think about the flips and flops in the plotting; but hey-it's all in fun. Dated but good.**1/2 outta ****.