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Released by: Universal Studios
Released on: May 17th, 2016.
Director: Don Michael Paul
Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Bill Bellamy, Darla Taylor, Sarah Strange, Aleks Paunovic
Year: 2015
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The Movies:
Director Don Michael Paul seems to have a bit of a cottage industry firmly in his grasp, in that he directs straight to video sequels to popular films. A quick look at his filmography shows that he has been behind follows up to Lake Placid, Jarhead, Sniper and Tremors. So it would stand to reason that if you were going to make a straight to video sequel to Kindergarten Cop, you'd get him to direct, right? And that's what happened, but this time out, there's no Arnold Schwarzenegger, there is instead Dolph Lundgren.
Additionally, there is no cop. Lundgren doesn't play a cop, he plays an F.B.I. agent named Reed who lives in a Seattle that's actually Vancouver. He plays by his own rules but has a decent relationship with his partner, Sanders (Bill Bellamy) even if their commanding officer frequently rakes them over the coals. When Reed isn't pimping for Twix, he's catching bad guys, bad guys like an Eastern European mobster named Zogu (Aleks Paunovic). Along the way, Reed got too close - he fell for Zogu's hot blonde mistress, Katja (Rebecca Olson). But in order to solidify their case against Zogu, they need to find a flash drive that belonged to a kindergarten teacher who has since gone the way of the dinosaur.
It's here that Reed, who lives in a trailer with a weight set on his front lawn, comes up with his genius plan. He'll go undercover as the dead teacher's replacement, find the flash drive with the important information on it, and seal the deal. Zogu will go to jail and everyone will be happy. Except Zogu, because he'll be in jail. At any rate, he somehow convinces the woman who runs this progressive, highly priced private school, Miss Sinclaire (Sarah Strange), that he's the right man for the job and before you know it, he's being peed on by kids and letting peanuts into the classroom. Thankfully for him, there's Olivia (Darla Taylor), the hot teacher who handles the other kindergarten class. She gives him some pointers and before you know it, they're out line dancing together, where they run into Zogu himself! As Reed realizes that he's foolishly put the lives of everyone at the school in danger, the clock starts ticking and the race to get the flash drive is on.
There are logic gaps here. There are blatant instances of product placement for Twix bars and even one for Uber. There's a weird mix of buddy cop backslapping, hockey romance, awwwwwwww cute kids and mediocre action. There is line dancing and there is peeing. There are crazy kids, annoying kids, funny kids. There's a kid whose dad has hit the bottle after losing his job, in need of Dolph's help (sort of) and there's a kid named Cowboy. There are lots of kids. There are very few teachers though - just Reed and Olivia, we don't meet any others save for Hal, the chubby, nerdy guy who teaches computers. He tries to be Reed's bro-friend until he learns that he and Olivia have a thing going. After all, Hal saw her first. He called dibs. There's a loud, in your face commanding officer. He yells at Reed and Sanders a lot. There's a lot of clichés here. The date that starts off great but ends poorly when the job gets in the way. The ending that you can see coming a mile away. Bad one liners. Hal's redemption. Ladies oogling Dolph's muscles. That happens a lot too. All of this stuff happens.
To his credit, Lundgren is fun to watch here. There's a definite novelty to seeing him interact with five and six year olds and he has proven in the past that he has a good sense of humor and decent comedic timing. This movie doesn't ask him to stretch as an actor, but it does cast him slightly against type. He's still the beefy action hero here, but he's also 'a pretty good teacher.' Although that line got cut and is in the deleted scenes, not the feature proper. Either way, he's fun to watch here and that's all that matters, his likeably dopey style suits the tone of the movie just fine. Darla Taylor's part isn't deep but she's foxy enough to work in the part and she handles the material just fine. Bill Bellamy is surprisingly underused here but amusing enough when he is on screen, while Sarah Strange as the quirky, insanely politically correct woman in charge of the school has some genuinely funny lines. Aleks Paunovic, who previously acted alongside Dolph in Uwe Boll's In The Name Of The King 2: Two Worlds, plays his thug as one, big cliché - he's even got a pool outside his place that has a revolving door of hotties that show up for a quick dip and just sort of lounge around in the way that hotties lounge around pool's owned by criminals in movies with no originality.
And that's the biggest problem with the movie, it has no originality. It's one predictable cliché after another for an hour and forty some odd minutes. It's also about fifteen minutes too long at that length. If you go into this knowing that, aware that this movie isn't even trying to do something even remotely unique, you can have a good time with it. It's cinematic comfort food. Kindergarten Cop 2 is the filmed equivalent of French Fries - not really all that memorable, pleasant enough at the time, and completely forgettable once you're finished with it.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Kindergarten Cop 2 hits DVD in a 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer from Universal that looks okay but never amazing, even by standard definition criteria. Colors are fine and black levels are good but there are some minor compression artifacts. Detail is a bit uneven, some shots look nice and sharp while others are on the soft side. There's nothing seriously wrong here, but you're not likely to jump out of your seat to take in all the eye-popping awesomeness either.
Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are offered in English as well as dubbed in Japanese, French, Spanish and Portuguese (amuse yourself by switching to the Japanese track now and again - whoever dubbed Dolph on that track has a great voice!). Removable subtitles are provided in English, Portuguese, Cantonese, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Thai making this a rather worldly affair indeed.
As to the quality of the English 5.1 track, it's pretty solid. There's decent surround usage throughout the movie while the dialogue stays clean and nicely balanced. The mix is free of any hiss or distortion and the music used throughout the movie has good depth. And hey, that line dancing scene? The surround sound puts you right there in the middle of the floor, so feel free to dance along with dopey Dolph as he does the honky-tonk-badonk-a-donk or whatever the hell it is he's doing in this scene (that song isn't actually used in the movie but you get the idea).
Aside from some internationally friend menus (meaning they don't use words to describe the choices but rather confusing and cryptic icons instead), we get ten minutes of deleted scenes, a two minute gag reel and a five minute long EPK style featurette. Some of the deleted scenes actually answer one or two questions that come up during the feature as its presented so maybe it would have made more sense to leave them in, but then the movie is fifteen minutes too long as it is. That gag reel is amusing enough while the featurette is little more than a fluff piece in which the director and the cast talk about how great everything is. The DVD comes in a standard keepcase that in turn fits inside a cardboard slipcover.
The Final Word:
Let there be no confusion here - Kindergarten Cop 2 is a pretty terrible film. It's predictable, it's poorly written, it exists only to cash in on the enduring popularity of the original Schwarzenegger film and it's ripe with irritating product placement. Having said that, the film is not without its own screwy entertainment value, and there are times where you laugh with the movie, not just at the movie. Dolph loyalists will get a kick out of seeing him cast alongside some kids and Universal's DVD release (there is no domestic Blu-ray release available at the time of this writing) looks okay, sounds quite good and includes a few throwaway extras for those who enjoy such things.
It's sad to see him misused constantly. He'll never be a good actor but he's very charismatic and still handsome. He'd fit right in as a supporting character in something like Sons Of Anarchy. Hell, cast him as a merc in the upcoming Predator. Just name him Swede or call him Nick Gunnar again. He has a larger than life quality and I'm baffled why he hasn't shown up in Vikings or any random super hero flick. He'd be a kick ass bond or John Wick henchman.
Regarding Predator. Put Van Damme in it too. Call him Frenchy (I know, I know. He's Belgian but Frenchy has a better ring to it) and let him go Bill Duke at some point.
As for Kindergarten Cop 2. It was fucking hilarious when Paunovic pretended to be an FBI agent in front of the old lady. Also, Dolph's lady love interest in this is hot as fuck.