Nearly everyone loves David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly. And they should. You should. Everyone should. There is little, if anything, bad about it. Great movie – buy it today.

But whenever a film becomes a success, it is almost inevitable (and in the 1980s, that ‘almost’ actually meant ‘definitely’) that a sequel will be made. Usually the sequel isn’t any good, serving only the purpose of making as much money as can be milked from a franchise.

I don’t think that anyone was really waiting with bated breath for The Fly II, but 20th Century Fox made it anyway, in the process becoming a studio with nearly as many recognizable monster movie franchises as Universal had in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Between The Fly, Predator, and of course Aliens, the studio was the biggest for non-slasher horror and sci-fi in the 1980s. The Fly II, released in 1989, helped end that.

Yet is it really that bad?

The short answer is “No”, but that really doesn’t cover it because while not bad, Chris Walas’ The Fly II is nowhere near exceptional, either. So let’s just dive into it for a moment.

The story of The Fly II goes quite a way to stay in near-perfect continuity with Cronenberg’s film. It legitimately is a sequel. No Nancy boy reimagining of events here. The first film is Bible fact in the storyline. It starts off with Ronnie giving birth to Martin Brundle, the illegitimate offspring of Seth and Ronnie’s post-dipteral union of bliss. This time Geena Davis doesn’t reprise the role, but it hardly matters, because she will die in childbirth during the first three minutes.

Martin Brundle is born as a normal looking baby boy (after being hatched, that is) and is raised in seclusion by Bartok Industries, the same corporation Seth Brundle worked for while developing the teleportation pods. As a result of being born with fly DNA, Martin ages more rapidly than a normal child. He doesn’t know why this is happening, being told only that he has a rare disease known as Brundle’s Accelerated Growth Syndrome. (Sadly, no one ever uses the awesome acronym BAGS.) Still, Martin is exceptionally smart, far smarter even than the scientists who oversee him. Before he is three, he develops his very own Anakin Skywalker pod-racer helmet. He’s that smart. Could your kid make a mechanical helmet 10 years before it existed? No, because your kid is stupid.

By the time Brundle is five years old, he has grown into a full-sized Eric Stoltz.

Now, while genetics may have made a fly child turn into Eric Stoltz, all the genetic engineering in the world couldn't make Eric Stoltz a legitimate actor. In this role, he plays Martin Brundle as if he was playing Crispin Glover and Kyle MacLachlan at the same time. It also so happens to be the perfect way to attack this kind of role; sheltered, awkward, and with a complete lack of social skills. Even with all this working against him, two things happen to shape his character. First, he is offered a job by Mr. Bartok himself working on the same teleportation pods that sealed his father’s fate. But more interestingly, he catches the eye of genre starlet Daphne Zuniga. Zuniga is so awesome I wrote a poem about her. Want to read it? I call it “Zuniga”.

Zuniga, Zuniga,
With your big-ass hair.
Makes me want,
A love affair.
Your wooden acting,
Is like a tree stump,
But that matters not,
You get my Spaceballs pumped.
I love you, Daphne.

Okay, so it’s a work in progress. Sue me.

Anyway, Beth Logan (Zuniga’s character) serves as the catalyst needed for Martin to become a MAN (and then a fly). After what is probably the least erotic sex scene ever committed to film (seriously, watching bees pollinate would be more arousing), Martin discovers that even as the most mature five-year-old in history, he is still being watched by the Lex Luthor-ish Mr. Bartok. To make things worse, he is slowly turning into a fly, just like his father

That may seem like a lot of build-up, but that's really just the first half of the movie. The second half is monster movie bliss, full of awesome make-up effects, and people getting killed off in different and gory ways. The dramatic highlight of the last half of the film is the reappearance of John Getz as Stathis Borans who, since losing an arm and a leg to Brundlefly’s vomit style bug-fu in the first film, has become a raving alcoholic. He’s still crying about how Seth took Ronnie away from him, and Martin, who at this point somewhat resembles Corky from Life Goes On, calls him out on being a bitch. It’s almost touching when Stathis agrees to loan them his Jeep.

Once Martin is fully transformed, vengeance is his as he takes on anybody swatter-less and stupid enough to step in his way. Security guards, his ex-captors, and ultimately Mr. Bartok himself will feel the wrath of Brundlefly 2.0. This should come as no surprise. But as to the hows and whys and ‘What happens to Martin?’ questions, I will force you to rent or buy this to find out. (Hint: He doesn’t go out in full-on Ice Cube “shotgun to the muthafuckin’ dome” glory.)

While there is sarcasm riddled throughout this review, The Fly II really isn’t all that bad a film. The direction and pacing are quite subdued. The film was shot almost entirely with natural lighting, so everything has a very non-Hollywood feel to it. This adds to the atmosphere. Christopher Young’s score is top notch, and while it rarely takes the forefront, it adds ambiance to the film. The effects, of course, are way cool. While I think the fly creature here isn’t as menacing as the fly in Cronenberg’s film, it still has a cool look of its own. Stephan Dupuis designed all the make-up, and Martin’s transformation is pretty damned gruesome and spectacular as a result. Dupuis was also behind the effects on the first film, as well as RoboCop, Enemy Mine, and Total Recall. He’s a true student of ‘80s make-up technique. They just don’t do it like that anymore. The script suffers a tad, crossing into comic book territory, but it has enough good ideas to keep things going.

While The Fly II may not be on many people’s greatest horror/sci-fi film lists, it really doesn’t deserve to be as panned as it is.

Presentation
Twentieth Century Fox did the unthinkable and released The Fly II as a two-disc collector’s edition that absolutely no one demanded or even requested. (Hell, I didn’t and I’m a fan.) The video quality of the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer actually varies quite a bit. The opening Fox logo is hazy, as are the few outdoors scenes in the film, yet other scenes look absolutely stunning. I don’t know if this is a product of the natural lighting (although, that wouldn’t account for the studio logo) but fortunately most of the film is pretty dark, with solid blacks. I used to have the previously released flipper disc (both The Fly and The Fly II) and while I can’t compare directly, I think the transfer was remastered at least somewhat from that release. The audio options were also expanded upon, with a DTS option as well as 5.1 Dolby Digital. Since most of the film has ambient backgrounds, your speakers aren’t likely to be blown at any volume, but the final act sounds nice with the surrounds on. Subtitles are provided in English and Spanish, and there are foreign language dubs in Spanish and French.

Extras
And they really weren’t holding back (…much)

Disc 1 –
Full-length audio commentary by Director Chris Walas and Film Historian Bob Burns.

I have mixed feelings about this commentary. There is good information to be had for sure - Walas discusses how he didn’t want the film to be called The Fly II and has interesting stories about how the original transporter pod from the first film was destroyed – but Bob Burns, while funny at times, really has nothing interesting to say. It seems that he is a “film historian” in that he has a lot of free space and keeps movie props in his house. You won’t be relistening to this much.

Alternate Ending: Houseboat Scene – (1:10)
Very different than the one used, but it is much too light in tone for the film. It was interesting to see as a fan, but I’m glad they chose the ending they did.

Deleted Scene: Stopping for Food – (1:33)
Another scene, which is actually quite funny, that would have killed the mood if used.

Trailer Gallery –
Trailers for the following films The Fly (1986) (2:04), The Fly (1958) (1:59), Return of the Fly (1:37), Alien (1:11), and The Omen (2:13)

Disc 2 –
Transformations: Looking Back at The Fly II – (48:28)
It is a tad long, but there is a lot of good information here. In fact, I would recommend it over listening to the commentary. You get a lot of pre- and post-production stories, with thoughts on what worked and what didn’t. It’s a pretty honest documentary.

“The Fly” Papers: The Buzz on Hollywood’s Scariest Insect – (57:36)
At nearly an hour long, this documentary has ample time to lose steam, so I have to admit I was extremely surprised when it didn’t. It serves as an awesome capsule for discussing the entire Fly series, with an even balance between ‘50s and ‘80s franchises. Quite a bit of time is spent with the currently unreleased on ANY format Curse of the Fly. The footage they showed looked pretty damned good as well, so hopefully this will mean a new release of the three original Fly movies soon. As a warning though, this documentary will spoil all five Fly films, so if you haven’t seen them all, don’t watch this.

1989 Theatrical EPK – (5:09)
Fluff. The only good thing about it is some actual 1989 interview footage, but it is otherwise typical EPK stuff. It’s pretty poor at that, too, because the narrator is over-voiced by the film audio. Lame.

CWI Video Production Journal – (18:11)
I imagine that this won’t be for most people, but the Fango fanboy in me loved every bit. This is video footage of Chris Walas’ production company creating and demonstrating their creations, various make-up tests, and other footage. There is even a nice exploding head that wasn’t used, but later was changed up a bit for a very memorable elevator sequence.

Composer’s Master Class: Christopher Young – (12:43)
The Fly II has one of the greatest horror film scores. It is pretty recognizable and several of the tracks have been reused in other films. The composer, Christopher Young, discusses the influences he had when writing the score and shows scenes where different themes are highlighted. This is a wonderfully edited piece, and if you have a thing for musical scores, you should spend some time with this feature.

Storyboard-to-Film Comparisons on the Opening Sequence (3:00), Bartok’s Death (2:34), and The Ending (1:23)
These are available with commentary as well. They are your standard comparisons. Sketches on the top, movie on the bottom. The commentary adds some nice ‘hows’ but at such a short running time, there isn’t much time for chatter.

Trailers – The Fly II Teaser (0:45), and The Fly II Trailer (1:10)
My only complaint about this set is that it didn’t include the awesome TV spots for this film. “Hush little baby, don’t you cry. / Just because your father was The Fly!” These TV spots were WAY cool and I would love to see them again. But really, that’s just nitpicking. These trailers, especially the teaser, were really good.

Still Galleries – Production Photos, Art of The Fly II, and Storyboards
These are true still galleries where you advance to the next image by pressing Next or Fast Forward on your remote. I liked Art of The Fly II best for all the cool creature FX stills.

And Now Some Parting Words…
I’ve been a fan of this film since it was first released, but even I was amazed by the comprehensive release that is this collector’s edition. Fox really has put out an amazing package, and I am sure all six of its other fans will be as awed by it as I am.

Sure, there were big shoes to fill with making this sequel, and no, those shoes really didn’t fit right when it was all said and done. But The Fly II manages to succeed in a different way. If The Fly was a pair of really nice and stylish loafers, The Fly II is an awesome pair of Nikes. It's fun and comfortable to wear around, familiar enough to want to come back to, but nothing that you would dress up in to impress anyone.

If The Fly II has anything to be sorry about, it’s the fact that it is a follow-up to such a fantastic film. If more people judged it on its own monster movie merits instead of constantly comparing it to its predecessor, I think The Fly II would have a lot more fans…

…Eric Stoltz would still be a bitch though.