Black Cobra 2 is a better film than Black Cobra. It just is. Part of this is because a bad Lethal Weapon rip-off is slightly more interesting to me than a bad Dirty Harry rip-off, but it also throws in more elements that exploitation fans can enjoy. It’s more violent, more profane, and the unintentional hilarity is much more pronounced. Aside from some bloody moments, and a lot of naughty language, this would have been prime MST3K fodder. And it has Spider-Man!
Fred Williamson is back as Robert Malone, and despite (for some reason) now being stationed in Chicago, the early scenes are once again obviously filmed in Italy. The opening action sequence, a great deal of which is on foot, really puts the 50-year old Williamson to the test as he crawls around a parking garage, running after the motorcycle assailant. Obviously feeling some old injuries, you can’t help but feel bad for him as he sucks wind. But, he gives it the old college try and he at least seems game to some.. um.. interesting physical challenges. He’s also not dubbed this time around, which makes his performance a lot more tolerable.
Malone is given a love interest in lounge singer Peggy Mallory (Emma Hoagland), who is not only incredibly bland and built like a 14 year old boy, but also spouts some ridiculous dialogue as their relationship heats up for no reason in particular. She gets an off screen bullet in the head in what can only be called a mercy killing.
It’s also a bit jarring whenever a non-dubbed character speaks to a dubbed character, as the sound levels don’t match well. An improvement over the ADR in the first film, but still quite rough.
The action is much more bloody this time around, with nice juicy squibs on display whenever Malone decides to shoot a terrorist in the chest with a shotgun (which is quite often). The action scenes are still inept, but Williamson’s odd-looking Kung-fu kicks are certainly a sight to behold. It’s also considerably more profane than the previous film with a surprising number of “fucks” and “shits” being thrown around. I was most amused by Peter Parker telling a severely beaten Iranian to “Shut the FUCK up!“, but your amusement at such things may vary.
A slight improvement on the original, but still a pretty awful zero budget Italian action knock-off. My Spidey sense says to avoid it, but at least we’re moving in the right direction for *sigh* Black Cobra 3.
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