James Bond Intro Credits (1962 - 2021)

 

James Bond. Intros. Music.

I like 'em. You like 'em. Most of 'em are decent. Let's get to it.

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Dr. No (1962)
Dir. Terence Young
'James Bond theme' & 'Three Blind Mice' by Monty Norman & John Barry

Intro kinda sucks. The SF on the barrel zoom is funny. Really disjointed. 'Three Blind Mice' is unintentionally hilarious. Barry's Bond theme is iconic but it's overused in this movie. The looped version used in this intro does it no favors. Doesn't really count as a Bond intro since we're in the proto stages but what the hell.

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From Russia With Love (1963)
Dir. Terence Young
'From Russia With Love theme' (orchestral) by John Barry

Exact vibe as the books. Low tech but brilliant. Sleaze masquerading as elegance; encapsulatory of the book version of the Bond character. Wish more of the films in the series took a cue from this one. Excellent orchestral arrangement by John Barry. One of my favorite takes on the Bond theme.

I'm dead certain Connery himself requested this.

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Goldfinger (1964)
Dir. Guy Hamilton
'Goldfinger' by Shirley Bassey & John Barry

Same trick as the previous film but done to much greater effect. Because the canvas upon which the images are projected are dead broads caked in gold dust suggestively posed like horror mannequins. Genius. Solid tune and excellent vocal performance by Dame Bassey. Really memorable images such as the golf ball rolling into the cleavage, the gun barrel angling out of the eye, and Goldfinger's big stupid head literally superimposed over golden fingers. Great stuff all around. Only complaint - and this is in no way a point against the intro - is that the aforementioned dead golden broads should be naked. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. I'm not even being perverted; it would just straight up be a better visual. I know there's no way in hell we'd have ever gotten that in a mainstream Hollywood movie in 1964 but this is why the mind is the best theater of all.

Aside from Royal Albert Hall. That place is gorgeous.

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Thunderball (1965)
Dir. Terence Young
'Thunderball' by Tom Jones & John Barry

Tom Jones is live and sweatin'! No wonder Eddy was such a mark for this guy. He kills this song. Legend is he passed out while hitting that last long note. Visuals are nice. Very lava lamp. The first of many, many, many Bond intros where the song is vastly superior to the visuals.

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You Only Live Twice (1967)
Dir. Lewis Gilbert
'You Only Live Twice' by Nancy Sinatra & John Barry

Kinda bland, honestly. Both the song and the visuals. Bothers me that the segue into the credits with the red bloom comes from the tiny blood splotch next to Bond's wrist and not the giant pool beside his ribs. The song is a bit overrated and the instrumentation doesn't really mesh well. Lyrics are decent, though. The later take Nancy Sinatra does, largely divorced of the Japanese inspired sound that John Barry forced in for the film version, is a general improvement but still feels kinda lopsided and unfocused. Billie Eilish would probably kill this tune, Lord forgive me for saying so. Very rare misstep for John Barry, in my opinion. But most people love this song so what do I know?

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On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Dir. Peter R. Hunt
'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' orchestral theme by John Barry

The debut of the falling man silhouette motif that'll be used in these intros for the rest of forever. The hourglass / martini glass conceit is really quite clever but the execution with the scenes from the previous movies is goofy and ill advised if you're trying to make people forget that Connery isn't in this one. This is actually one of the better pre-Brosnan Bond movies on the whole and poor George Lazenby puts on a decent performance but it's totally snuffed out by the entire vibe of this flick. George never had a chance because it's not the kinda story to introduce a new actor with; it's the kind to write an old one out on. "This never happened to the other fellow," indeed. John Barry's theme is great, as usual. One of the Bond intros I come back to rewatch the most often because of it. Even though the chick with the pointy b-cup rat boobs and the snarling Japanese dude with the sword make me laugh.

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Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Dir. Guy Hamilton
'Diamonds Are Forever' by Shirley Bassey

The debut of the parting lady hands silhouette motif that'll be used in these intros for the rest of forever. That poor cat does not want to be there. You can see it grimace as the offscreen extra obviously pokes it in the butt to make it crawl under the leg for that one shot. Watching them obviously have to edit around the cat not wanting to do a damn thing during its scenes is amusing. Never work with animals, folks. At least not ones with expressive faces. Intro is serviceable but the Shirley Bassey tune kills. The best written of the Bond songs, easily. 

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Live and Let Die (1973)
Dir. Guy Hamilton
'Live and Let Die' by Wings

The (British) Empire not sending their best

The gunbarrel guy misses me by about two feet to the right but I still die anyway. Fucking wonky hitboxes. Intro sequence is really good but the song is overplayed. Very overplayed. To the point it actively detracts from my enjoyment. Can we just stop playing this song on the radio, please?

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The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Dir. Guy Hamilton
'The Man with the Golden Gun' by Lulu

Intro sucks. Totally bland. Taking a buncha 7/10 women and turning them into 4/10s by making them butterfaced in water ripples sure was a decision. The song by Lulu is a bop but I, like most human beings, would have rather liked Alice Cooper's theme to be used instead.

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The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Dir. Lewis Gilbert
'Nobody Does it Better' by Carly Simon

Not a bad song but not my favorite. Elegant but kinda fluffly on the whole. Intro sequence itself is one of the better Moore era ones. Definitely the best of the "naked broads in silhouette" genre. The posing is actually dynamic and fun with some memorable visuals. The balance beam act on the gun and Moore casually disarming a group of marching naked Russian female soldiers with a single push being high points. I'm still waiting for someone with SFM to remake this with the Spy from TF2 and Scout's mom. "The Spy as The Spy in 'The Spy Who Loved Me'". 

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Moonraker (1979)
Dir. Lewis Gilbert
'Moonraker' by Shirley Bassey

Totally phoned in. I know what they were going for - naked babes floating in space - but it fails in execution. Song's a bit of a snoozer, too. Not bad, just too sedate. I still don't know what the fuck a moonraker is or why he thinks his dreams will come true.

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For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Dir. John Glen
'For Your Eyes Only' by Sheena Easton

Odd decision to have this basically just be a Sheena Easton music video but after how awful Moonraker's intro was I can't blame them for trying something new. Unfortunately... this has the exact same problems as Moonraker! Boring-ass intro, sedate love song, last minute obligatory addition feel. The song isn't bad but it's not spectacular either. I dunno how much of my ambivalence towards Moore's Bond has to do with him being miscast in the role and how much has to do with the films feeling totally half-assed compared to everyone else.

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Octopussy (1983)
Dir. John Glen
'All Time High' by Rita Coolidge

It's just Moonraker again. For the third movie in a row. Fucking hell. Song is, once again, decent but unremarkable. Saxophone gives it a slight edge over the others. The saxophone is objectively the best instrument and elevates everything it's used in by at least half a letter grade. Intro is disappointing. They tease you making it look like they're gonna do the From Russia With Love thing but updated with swingin' '80s laser projection technology, but no. Halfway decent image of a buncha arms holding guns wrapping around a cardboard cutout of Bond to give him a hug. Sorta ruined by there being five of them. Guess he's getting frisky with General Greivous' sister. This is followed by Bond getting annihilated by a holdhout pistol that shoots lasers so I'm not just creating baseless celebrity gossip.
We almost had James Brolin replace Roger Moore in this movie. We were so close. Between that screentest and Roy Scheider's spy scenes in Marathon Man (1976) it's damn sad that the best Bond material from the Roger Moore era didn't actually come from a James Bond movie.

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A View to a Kill (1985)
Dir. John Glen
'A View to a Kill' by Duran Duran

Oh thank you God, a good intro. Not the biggest Duran Duran fan on the planet but they may as well be Roy Orbison following up the slog we just got through. We're pure '80s here with new wave and neon lasers. Dated? Yes. Do I care? No. Song rules. Intro is serviceable with it's glow-in-the-dark painted ladies and Bond's hilarious cardboard cutout actually doing things for once. Good movie, too. Easily my favorite of the Roger Moore era. That it has Christopher Walken attempting to plunge California into the ocean is a large part of that.

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The Living Daylights (1987)
Dir. John Glen
'The Living Daylights' by aha

Dalton era time. Timothy Dalton is my favorite Bond actor. He's a barely constrained, shallowly charismatic sociopath who enjoys his job a little too much and only feels at rest when he's slamming down booze, cigarettes, or poon; all of which unreasonably expensive and paid for by English tax dollars. In short, all he's missing is the scar and he'd just straight up be James Bond from the books. Song by aha (a-ha? A-ha? they change it all the damn time) absolutely rules. Very punchy intro. Visuals are still generic but the music carries it.

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License to Kill (1989)
Dir. John Glen
'License to Kill' by Gladys Knight

Fairly generic intro but killer, killer song. They combined the bombastic bass sound of the '80s with the smooth ballad sound they wanted to go for in the '70s and in the process inadvertently rediscovered the sound that made the original Shirley Bassey songs work. Easily one of my favorite Bond songs. Doesn't hurt that it was later used as the inspiration for Dean Malenko's underrated WWF theme. Which was then in turn used as the base for Antonio Cesaro's theme.

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GoldenEye (1995)
Dir. Martin Campbell
'Goldeneye' by Tina Turner

The best Bond intro by a lot. Sorry to go along with the pack but sometimes, rarely, the mob is right. Everything works. We're still doing the naked broads in silhouette thing for brand recognition but the camera tracking, pacing, staging, and transitions are all top notch and memorable. The Soviet hammer crumbling in such a way that it matches the angle and position of the pistol introduced from offscreen is aesthetically satisfying in a way that's impossible to describe to people who didn't eat breakfast this morning. And then they go and do it AGAIN by matching the bend of the woman with the sledgehammer to the high heeled shoe, all while seamlessly pulling off the very difficult task of switching the natural eye tracking from upwards to downwards and then to the left by utilizing two elements in the foreground to prime the viewer for it. You could teach an entire film directing class from this intro alone. The best part of an outstandingly good movie. Oh and the song slaps, too.

I'm a proponent of the theory that after a certain length of time has elapsed, be it ten years or fifty depending upon the narrative lifespan of the lynchpin character, all entries in a franchise become fanfiction regardless of their quality as they've moved so far away from the cultural context of their origin point they've divorced from it completely. Art does not exist in a vacuum and death of the author is and always has been a cope perpetuated by people who are either too fucking lazy to research the climate from which it came from or, far more often, have an agenda of their own to push and cannot process that people they disagree with created something they like. Love it though I do, I'd say the Brosnan era, in which the Soviet Union has totally collapsed IRL and all true first world nations' main adversaries became themselves, is where James Bond crossed that threshold and everything from GoldenEye onward is fanfiction of varying quality. James Bond without the Cold War backdrop is just a prissy misogynist fed with no real purpose. That is textually the whole conceit of the character dating back to the very first Bond book. Which is meant to be read as a tragedy, I should add.

Now that I've thoroughly pissed everyone off, let's continue along.

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Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Dir. Roger Spottiswoode
'Tomorrow Never Dies' by Sheryl Crow

Great visual stuff with the circuit boards, LEDs, and see-through guns. Same great shot tracking as GoldenEye. Brosnan Bond doesn't have a single bad intro. Sheryl Crow's vocals take a little getting used to but I've come around on them. Great song but not my favorite. Could've gone without the obvious tease of showing that one titty, though. Crosses the line from alluring to cheesecake. Reminds me of some shit that the WWF would've done during the Attitude Era. This coming from the same guy who said the chicks in the Goldfinger intro should've been naked. Showing titty is fine in my book as long as it serves a purpose.

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The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Dir. Michael Apted
'The World is Not Enough' by Garbage

Top tier Bond theme. Garbage slays it. Good intro, too. They finally shake things up with the obligatory naked broads in the Brosnan era and start getting artsy with it; a much needed change. The use of iridescent color and crude oil makes this one memorable.

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Die Another Day (2002)
Dir. Lee Tamahori
'Die Another Day' by Madonna

Not as bad as everyone says. Nowhere near the top but I'll take this over Moonraker or For Your Eyes Only any day. Late stage Madonna is late stage Madonna; if you can get over that, the rest of the intro is pretty great. It was a controversial call to have the title sequence actually be a part of the narrative but I think it's an experiment that works, unlike the music video for the aforementioned For Your Eyes Only. The slaggy dancing women being elements of ice, fire, and electricity is great. The shots of them flying off as sparks and acting as spazmatic electrodes is unironically really creative.

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Casino Royale (2006)
Dir. Martin Campbell
'You Know My Name' by Chris Cornell

Blows my mind that only four years passed between Die Another Day and this. It feels like an entirely different civilization created it; which isn't too far off the mark, I suppose, as this is the first Bond flick produced purely in a post-9/11 world. Visuals are nice, song is decent. Cornell has never been my favorite vocalist but he's got his moments. I like this sequence but it looks like it was made in photoshop. 

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Quantum of Solace (2008)
Dir. Marc Forster
'Another Way to Die' by Alicia Keys & Jack White

Not as bad as I remember. Fundamentally a good intro - basically picked straight outta the Moore era but with some Brosnan quirks to improve the overall quality - but needs a little more contrast on the colors. Frenetic pace is okay but you really need color to pull it off. I like that this movie and Die Another Day both use the GoldenEye iris motif. The song is pretty good, actually, but not my favorite. They should've gone with Shirley Bassey's infinitely superior 'No Good About Goodbye' which, curiously, utilizes the motifs from the score despite several Bond YouTubers telling me for dead certain that it was never planned to be used in the movie (citation: trust me bro, I've got a Bond poster behind me).

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Skyfall (2012)
Dir. Sam Mendes
'Skyfall' by Adele

Spoils a little too much of the movie for my liking but damn, really great otherwise. The song rules. The tracking and editing are great. The best use of the falling man motif. Feels a bit too much like a Best Of compilation at times (like the movie in general, honestly) but all is forgiven with that incredible Rorschach sequence and making a damn near four minute credit scene fly by like nothing. Adele is a passable upper mid tier white woman soul singer type who cropped up when white people music was at the lowest point it's ever been in human history. Therefore she's lionized as an all-time great artist when in truth she just lucked out when the Amy Winehouse spot on the card became vacant. 

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Spectre (2015)
Dir. Sam Mendes
'Writing on the Wall' by Sam Smith

This intro is way too long. Should have ended with the gun firing ink. People actually sighed with annoyance during my screening when it kept going after that. Visually cool at points but coulda done without the octopus sex. Fucking Hollywood weirdos. The GoldenEye iris makes a return with icky tentacles. They really go all in with tentacles in this one. Sam Smith's falsetto is insufferable. The decent instrumentation and his low notes on "FOR YOU" save this from being my least favorite Bond intro. They actually cut out the penultimate chorus from the movie version because Sam Smith's falsetto breaks and it sounds like he's dying of an asthma attack.

A lot of people prefer the Radiohead song but I'm more ambivalent. I like a lot of Radiohead's stuff against my better judgment, but their Spectre theme just sounds like one of those videos of a cat meowing into a microphone. If we're including songs that should've been used instead, I prefer Judas Priest's track of the same name from "Firepower".

Yes, I know it was never intended to be used with this movie and it's a total coincidence they released a song with that title a few years after this flick, but I can dream.

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No Time To Die (2021)
Dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga
'No Time to Die' by Billie Eilish

This song rules. It's the song that people have gaslit themselves into thinking the Radiohead theme is. Billie Eilish is the perfect pick for this kinda downbeat Bond theme. Unfortunately this intro is the only good part of the movie and even then it's not terribly good. It tries to be both a shout out to the history of Bond opening credits and its own visually unique thing and kinda falls flat in the attempt. Remember what I said about all franchises ultimately devolving into fanfiction? The polka dots from Dr. No making a return and the spiral of pistols creating a DNA strand got a pop outta me, not gonna lie. The song works far better on its own.

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With the Bond franchise (and British culture in general) being functionally dead at the moment, that's all the Bond themes out there. Unless you count...

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Never Say Never Again (1983)
Dir. Irvin Kershner
'Never Say Never Again' by Michel Legrand

Yes, somehow they convinced Sean Connery to do one more Bond film in the '80s. Don't ask me how, I don't know. Connery just kinda did whatever the hell he felt like after a certain point in his life. Very much a Sir Christopher Lee type of sigma male. I guess being knighted grants you that sort of aura. The song is... eh, decent enough. The intro is not a Bond intro at all. Instead it's a typical action scene with the song playing over it. A fairly decent one but it doesn't count. Song is lower mid tier on its own. At least this is the only non-canon James Bond film anyone knows abo-

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Casino Royale (1967)

Dir. John Huston, Ken Hughes, Val Guest, Robert Parrish, Joe McGrath, and let's say Alan Smithee and Goldust's wife Marlena while we're at it

'Casino Royale theme' by Burt Bacharach & Herb Alpert

Cartoon animatics are fun and Orson Welle's big fat head gives Goldfinger a run for its money. I dunno why everyone is dressed up like angels but I've been told that the subtleties of British comedy often escape us Americans. It's a comedy so it's of course lighter than anything in the main series. I do wonder why the animated style was never tried for one of the mainline Bond films, though. It would have certainly broken up the monotony of barely naked broads. Burt's theme is fun but not memorable.

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...okay, any more I should know about?

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James Bond Jr. (1991)

Dir. Bill Hutton & Tony Love

'James Bond Jr. theme' by Dennis C. Brown & Maxine Sellers

An animated series about James Bond's nephew... James Bond. Apparently they're doing a Rey Mistero / Rey Mistero Jr. type deal. Yes, this was a thing. It lasted one season, as most cartoon shovelware did during the the time. It looks... better than Max Steel but not as good as Johnny Quest. I wouldn't know, I've never watched it. The theme song makes me groan. It's one of those that just shows clips from the show instead of having a proper intro. A solid 95% of cartoons that do that are the drizzling shits. If they didn't put forth the effort to animate an intro it's a good indication that the show is being made as a tax write-off. It sucks and I hate it. Take it away.

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Even if that's not all of 'em that's all I'm gonna do. I can't take anymore.

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TOP FIVE INTROS:
1) GoldenEye (1995)
2) Goldfinger (1964)
3) Skyfall (2012)
4) From Russia With Love (1963)
5) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)


BOTTOM FIVE INTROS:
1) Moonraker (1979)
2) For Your Eyes Only (1981)
3) Spectre (2015)
4) Octopussy (1983)
5) You Only Live Twice (1967)


TOP FIVE SONGS:
1) 'The World is Not Enough' by Garbage
2) 'License to Kill' by Gladys Knight
3) 'No Time to Die' by Billie Eilish
4)  'Diamonds Are Forever' by Shirley Bassey
5) 'GoldenEye' by Tina Turner


BOTTOM FIVE SONGS:
1) 'For Your Eyes Only' by Sheena Easton
2) 'Writing on the Wall' by Sam Smith
3) 'All Time High' by Rita Coolidge
4) 'You Only Live Twice' by Nancy Sinatra
5) 'Moonraker' by Shirley Bassey

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Darkman II: Featuring Durant From The Darkman Franchise

 
Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995)
Dir. Bradford May
Universal Home Video
Rating: C+

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...and Darkman too, I guess

The return of... who?

Oh right, the guy with the weird haircut from the first one. I think he chopped off fingers with a cigar cutter or something. He got exploded in a head-on collision between a low flying helicopter and a cement bridge. Somehow the writers decided he kicked out of this instead of simply creating a new villain for the second movie.

The proper title of this flick is “Darkman II: The Return of the Only Person We Could Get From the First One”. 'Cause this is 1995 and Liam Neeson is not returning your calls after (almost) winning an Academy Award for Schindler's List (1994). He's a serious actor now. No more sci-fi or comic book movies for him, no sir. Frances McDormand, similarly, was in the midst of actually winning an Academy Award for Fargo (1996), setting off a chain of events that'd result in her getting perennially nominated for starring in all the Coen Brothers movies that nobody actually watched. 

Speaking of directors who haven't had a finger on the pulse since 2007, Sam Raimi is nowhere to be seen either. He's neither directing nor does he have any credits on the screenplay other than the obligatory “Executive producer” (translation: $50 tier Patreon donor) and “Based on characters created by,”(translation: We paid him $100 to make this movie). That's a shame as his unique visual style was easily the main draw of the first one.

Replacing Liam Neeson in the role of main character Peyton Westlake / Darkman is none other than Imhotep himself, Arnold Vosloo. The obvious drop off in perceived skill aside, I've no problem with this. If ever there were a franchise that had a hardcoded excuse to recast the main character between each installment, this is it.

- - -


The movie opens promisingly with a flashback to the first movie in which Liam Neeson gets his head dunked into a vat of exploding science goop by the minions of Robert G. Durant (Larry Drake).

We then pull out to reveal that this scene is a reshoot and said exploding science goop has completely transformed Liam Neeson into Arnold Vosloo, miraculously changing his hair color and length between frames and switching his accent from an Irishman attempting to sound American into a South African attempting to sound English. This retcon is completely unnecessary as Darkman's whole gimmick of wearing lifelike masks means he can feasibly be portrayed by just about any actor with only a throwaway line for explanation. All you had to do was start the story in media res and everyone would've gotten it.

That said, I'd be lying if I said Arnold Vosloo redubbing the scene of an exploding, flaming Liam Neeson flying by the camera didn't make the whole thing worth it.

It should be noted that Strack is completely cut out of both this recap and the movie on large, canonizing just how inconsequential a villain he was.



    Flash forwards however many months to the present. Underworld crime boss Robert G. Durant kicks out of a coma he's been in for nearly three years. Everyone is just as surprised as I am that he could survive a head on helicopter crash that exploded him to death with only a couple facial scars to mark it. Such is life. In the meantime a power vacuum has arisen in [nondescript liberal run city] during Durant's absence. One that seems to make Darkman happy as increased drug dealer and gun runner violence means increased opportunity for him to steal from criminals to fund his research. Darkman is not so much a superhero as he is a self-interested third party that sometimes stops crimes when he feels like it.

Speaking of Darkman, he spends his days in full costume collecting useful scrap as one of the hundreds of itinerants in the poor side of town and his nights using it to build a full supervillain lair underneath the city inside the abandoned railway tunnels. Peyton, despite his protestation to the contrary at the end of the previous movie, is singularly devoted to perfecting his artificial skin formula and creating a mix that'll last beyond ninety-nine minutes in the sunlight so he can have a permanent replacement for his lost face. This retcon I don't mind as it gives him something to strive for and fits into my interpretation that Peyton was completely talking out of his ass at the end of the last movie due to being so juiced on adrenaline and guilt over getting his girlfriend endangered that he was willing to say anything to push her away.

Despite having a vested interest in remaining anonymous, Darkman for some reason insists upon doing almost all face-to-face dealings in this movie wearing a replica of his Peyton Westlake face, making him easily recognizable to anyone paying any modicum of attention. He's not stupid so I'm gonna read this as a character flaw of his. A manifestation of his need for validation of his self-worth. He wants to be Peyton Westlake again and wants to have real human connections. Vanity? A decent amount.

Durant's EVIIIIIIL plan is to legally purchase a condemned warehouse and use it to manufacture high quality domestic firearms to undercut the international gun smuggling cartels, thereby extricating them from the city and providing manufacturing jobs for the working class American criminal. The fiend! It just so happens that his property of choice is the current location for the lab of a Dr. David Brinkman (Jesse Collins) who, of course, is working on a light resistant polymer that Peyton figures would sync up nicely with his own research. Just as they're hitting things off, Durant's goons come a'calling for Dr. Brinkman.

You've seen the first movie so you can guess what happens next.


    It's eventually revealed that Durant's plan goes beyond sensible gangster economics and into the land of Bronze Age comic book insanity. He jailbreaks and recruits the insane Dr. Alfred Hathaway (Lawrence Dane) and intends to use his knowledge to build ATOMIC POWERED RAYGUNS in lieu of the Russian tax write-offs the rest of the gangs are using. He's going to do a limited run of them and sell them to a local skinhead group to the tune of $5,000,000 a pop. Batteries not included. That's... so stupid I kinda love it. Setting aside the obvious logistical problem of consolidating power after you've handed off the weapons. What's to stop the skinheads from turning you into a smoking pile and stealing your scientist and Russian connection, Ivan Dragunov (Rod Wilson), who know how to manufacture the weapon and have access to the power supply respectively? Just a tiny logical oversight from an otherwise brilliantly petty blue collar villain plan.

    Meanwhile, Peyton butts heads with Laurie (Renee O'Connor), Dr. Brinkman's sister, when she agrees to sell the property to Durant's front firm for $1,000,000 in cash after Durant organizes his murder to strongarm a sale. Even after Peyton tells her that Durant is the man who murdered her brother, she's still willing to go ahead with it until he provides irrefutable proof. A million dollars is a lot of money and she's currently living in the tumbledown side of town, barely scraping a living together in a strip club.

In order to win Laurie over to his side, Peyton begins feeding information about Durant's organization to news reporter Jill Randall (Kim Delaney) of trashy shock news program Street Copy. Jill is a total delight. In addition to being the best overall performance given in the movie (despite how briefly she's in it), the character smokes three packs a day, hates her shlocky job, and is ultimately proven to be very good at it when she deduces Darkman's identity through simple logic. When Jill confronts him about it, Peyton explodes into a paroxysm of rage and admits out loud both to her and to himself that he's going after Durant purely out of personal spite towards him for ruining his life, that avenging Brinkman is just the icing on the cake; that him even attempting to follow legal channels in the loosest sense by letting her on the case is just a means to fuck Durant over by preventing his firm from buying the Brinkman's property; whether or not anyone believes that Durant is alive, whether or not there is any evidence to convict or even arrest him should it be proven that he is, whether or not any of this amounts to more than a conciliatory gesture towards the notion of civility and due process; he is going to murder the ever-loving dogshit outta Robert G. Durant for his own personal pleasure and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do to stop him. 

Well, he's got my vote.

Jill goes through with the story, figuring she can wrangle Durant the old fashioned way by causing enough of a media stink. Peyton warily congratulates her. She then steps inside her car, turns the key and instantly explodes in a fireball. Whomp whomp. Well, if this movie has taught me anything it's that she'll probably be back for the next one.

Ultimately this does end up having the desired effect as Laurie Brinkman puts two-and-two together to realize that Robert G. Durant did indeed have her brother murdered and reneges on the decision to sell their property to him. She makes it out alive due to Darkman impersonating of one of Durant's thugs, Eddie (David Ferry), and helping her escape, trapping another one of Durant's goons in a glass revolving door in a callback to the first movie. This case of extreme deja vu tilts the hand to Durant that Peyton Westlake is once again mucking up his plans and he rather humorously draws a gun and begins chasing Peyton down the street on foot in the middle of rush hour traffic with all the gusto an out-of-shape forty year-old coma patient can muster as he cannot believe the cosmic level of bullshit required for this exact same set of circumstances to be happening to him again. I totally get it, man.

    The finale of the movie is rather genre standard. Durant and his goons kidnap Laurie to lure Darkman into a trap, which he of course falls for like an idiot. Cue the obligatory Batman warehouse gunfight cum ninja goon elimination scene. That sentence looks really lewd now that I've written it down but it's too funny for me to want to edit it. Eventually Durant attempts to escape in his specially modified bulletproof longcar only to realize too late that Darkman has stuffed a pipebomb into the glove compartment. Durant gets exploded, not unlike how poor Jill did earlier. Vengeance sated, Darkman takes his leave of Laurie and returns to his life of... whatever the hell he was doing before this movie started. Collecting tin cans, I think.

In a postscript, Jill is memorialized on the TV for being a reporter of alleged integrity and Peyton tips his hat to her, musing that all his pursuit of vengeance has done is mar the world further and place him back exactly where he was at the start.

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Danny Elfman's themes are reused with additional music provided by Randy Miller. It's good. Unremarkable, but good. The VFX and makeup are similarly decent for the most part but the Darkman burned face mask is notably less articulate than the one in the previous film. Barring some really obvious ADR work and one horrifying nested mouth shot in the finale of Arnold Vosloo's teeth glimmering behind the oversized ones of the mask, it was close enough not to be immersion breaking. Little imperfections that a more seasoned director would've buffed out.

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The first film was inspired by Universal Monsters with a twist of Batman and The Shadow thrown in for flavor. This one is clearly inspired by Frank Miller's Daredevil run, as pretty much every street level superhero story produced between the years 1984 and 2007 was to some extent. The character of Jill Randall is functionally a genderswapped Ben Urich. The exposé piece she plans to release on Durant is even titled “The Fall of a Kingpin” if the references up until that point were too subtle. I happen to be a big fan of pre-”Sin City” Frank Miller's work so this was a plus for me. I even like RoboCop 3 (1993) quite a bit for all its faults. I just vibe with the man's work the way Portland hipsters vibe with Wes Anderson.


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FAVORITE QUOTES:

[flashback to the first film of Peyton's flaming silhouette flying by the camera as it gets exploded]
PEYTON: [redubbed by Arnold Vosloo]
AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUH!


THUG: [rattles Darkman with an AK-47; Darkman blocks it with a manhole cover]
What the hell are you?!
DARKMAN: A concerned citizen. [frisbee chucks the cover into his face, knocking him flat; proceeds to root through the thug's drug deal briefcase, tossing the bags of coke out next to his mewling form before absconding with all the money just as the police arrive] Thanks for the donation.


DURANT: [watching scummy news show Street Copy recount the drug deal Darkman foiled]
Tragic. Simply tragic. I abhor violence. Especially when it doesn't make me money.


DURANT: [whilst his thugs torture Brinkman to death]
Quietly, gentlemen. This is a school night.


[Dragunov reveals he has a cache of Russian plutonium batteries]
HATHAWAY: Are they stable?
DRAGUNOV: These cells were manufactured by technicians in workers' paradise of eastern Uzbekistan. Only finest Yugoslavian materials were used in their engineering. They are reliable as your Ford Pinto.


DARKMAN: Eddie? You killed my friend.
EDDIE: [nervous chuckle] I'm sorry. Forgive me?
DARKMAN: Apology accepted.
[Darkman backhands him off a raised platform; Eddie falls and splatters the back of his skull open on the cement floor below]


[Durant trains the atomic rifle on Darkman]
DURANT: I can't tell you what an epic pain-in-the-ass you've been. But nothing lasts forever, pizza face.


[closing narration]
DARKMAN: Vengeance has many casualties, the guilty and the innocent. My salvation was buried with those who would rescue me from revenge. And so, I continue to face the darkness... alone.

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