Review of Death Wish II (1982) by Timothy S — 07 Nov 2011

It was clearly a simplistic and manipulative movie, but at least the original "Death Wish" had a valid point to make. It had something to say about the changing times we live in. "Death Wish 2" has considerably less to say about much of anything. It stretches credibility to the breaking point and wallows in unpleasantness just to punch of the revenge scenes in the film's second half. The movie exists solely to make money, and in order to justify it's existence, the screenwriters come up with a completely ridiculous plot that asks us to believe that Charles Bronson would be targeted by society's worst a second time 2000 miles away. The writers should have conceived of the franchise in 1974 and given him more children that could have been raped and slaughtered in subsequent films.

Bronson himself isn't exactly the warmest and most sympathetic character in the history of cinema, and it's virtually impossible to feel his pain. The movie has a lot more graphic violence than its predecessor, and because of that it almost works as a "so bad it's good" B-movie, but there's quite simply not a lot to like here. And the funny thing is that the franchise actually gets worse from here.

There are no surprises along the way since you pretty much know where it's going right from the first few minutes, and the creeps are pretty generic. You don't really get any satisfaction from watching them get blown away. It's like watching Bronson shoot fish in a barrel, and it gets kind of boring after a while.

"Death Wish 2" lacks the spark and social commentary that marked the original. With that gone, you're really not left with much.