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A sequel that easily surpasses the original, this film fires a barrage of humor, gore, misfit characters, and action that just don’t quite payoff in the end. While the plot is a pretty straightforward tale of a ragtag group on a dangerous mission, most of the attempts to surprise the audience can be seen coming a mile away. (Although a lot of this might be due to the film’s trailers.) There are also a few moments where the film jumps around with chronologically. It works fine initially, but it hurts the flow more often than not. The characters are a mixed-bag. Since most of them are obscure characters, the audience has no expectations about them. This hurts the film early on, because most of them are clearly bad people, or we assume they’re bad because of their status as prisoners in a super-max prison. It makes it tricky to find anybody to root for, and even harder to know if any of them should trust each other. That means the story has to work extra hard to make you sympathize with them. Thankfully, strong performances from the cast help make these characters more palatable. It’s not just the acting, but also the way the actors portray their characters that breathe life into them and really help them gel as a group. The action is good, with everybody’s unique fighting styles and abilities keeping the action distinct depending on the characters. The special effects look pretty solid (especially with King Shark, whose scales look life-like in his close-ups.) This film is absolutely Rated R, thanks to lots of swearing, full-frontal male and female nudity, and an almost-gratuitous amount of gore. There’s a mid-credits and post-credit scene. The final one seems to be the more important of the two.
***1/2 out of *****