Filmic Friday 202: FX2

Sometimes, you just want to watch a pair of Brian/Bryans fight crime with a robot clown.

This week was one of those times.

And yes, this is a terrible poster for the movie.

Z & I have seen FX2: The Deadly Art of Illusion before, but it's a movie that bears rewatching. Kinda like Manhunter. Or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Or the MST3K of Killer Shrews...

The original F/X told the tale of special effects wizard Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) trying to survive being hunted down by the mob and police alike while schlubby cop Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) tries to catch him (because it's assumed that Rollie is a killer). There are special-effects solutions to problems and it's a fun movie with some really, really dark parts (Rollie's girlfriend is slaughtered in front of him, for instance).

FX 2 The Deadly Art of Illusion is... 2/3 the movie that F/X was. Brown & Dennehy reprise their roles, though you can barely tell on Dennehy's part because he goes from looking like a cross between Magnum TA and Harley Race to looking like Biff Tannen from Back To The Future...

Holy crap. He really, really looked like Harley Race...

Now, don't get me wrong, the callbacks to F/X are amazing, there are rubber boobs, there's, as I mentioned, a creepy robot clown, a pretty decent child actor, a new love interest, a lot of great bad 1990s suits, and it's generally a great movie.

I mean, it starts with a transvestite murderbot who explodes all over the place!
It's friggin awesome!

The problem lies in the third act, where, despite the story being about bad cops, it still comes out of nowhere that the DA is working with bad cops to sell out to the mob, and also there's something about Vatican treasure. Yeah. Don't worry about the spoilers because the leadup to this Papal Subplot is nonexistent.

The plot to FX 2 is pretty much the same as F/X  only instead of faking a mob hit, he's trying to lure out a serial killer/stalker dude. It goes very wrong. He only does the job because his girlfriend's ex-husband begs him to, and he gets killed. Rollie isn't even an effects guy anymore - he designs super expensive toys (such as a life-sized robot clown you control with a cyberpunk wetsuit he calls a "telemetry suit"). So basically the whole movie is just an excuse to get both Brown & Dennehy paychecks. I'm 100% okay with that.

They certainly didn't pay them for the series...

This is a weird poster, too.
It makes it look like Bluey the Clown & Rollie are having a relationship.
And it makes it look like Dennehy is macking on Rollie's girl & her kid.

So the plot is very thin, but the look of this movie, the soundtrack, and the acting are all worth every weird subplot.

Basically, you should watch this movie, dangit.

Also, it made me laugh in the first five seconds because the title shows up on screen in the wrong order.

It shows up as

2
FX

it's hilarious!

Alright, that'll be all from me today.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC