Rollie Tyler is now a toymaker. Mike, the ex-husband of his girlfriend Kim, asks Rollie to help catch a killer. The operation goes well until an unknown party kills Mike. Mike's boss, says it was the killer who killed Mike but Rollie knows it wasn't. Obviously, he is involved with Mike's death, so he calls on Leo McCarthy, his close friend for help, and they discover it's not just the killer and the corrupt cops they have to worry about.......The first film was a moderate success when released, and the chemistry between Brown And Dennehy was sensational, so its not hugely surprising that a sequel was green lit.And while it's not the greatest film ever made, in fact, it's quite an incoherent mess at times, but just for the absurdity of it all, and the smugness of Dennehy, its a blast from beginning to end.Any film featuring a transvestite with a rocket launcher for an arm, a dancing clown suit, and a sausage firing machine, just begs to be seen.It's unashamedly tacky, one of those films that was struggling to adjust from the eighties, so we have your stereotypical bad cops, the woman who say yes to going to Jamaica after they haven't seen the guy for years, and of course, drinking and driving is an acceptable past time.But the chemistry is still there, the soundtrack is hilarious, and it looked like the cast and crew had a nice little holiday out of it by the look of the final scene.

The glaring shortcoming of F/X 2 is that the main thrust of the plot, i.e. the what and why of the baddies, is not revealed until an hour or so into the film. At 109 minutes, that's well over half-way. Certainly the point was to pop our main character, Rollie Tyler (reprised by Bryan Brown from the first movie), into a life and death situation beyond his comprehension, and not until several clues are followed revealed that he (and we) find out what these circumstances are.Briefly, Rollie, the Australian special effects wizard, is hired again by the FBI to aid in cornering a serial killer. However, the plan goes awry when the FBI man who was supposed to stop the suspect in his tracks is killed by another unknown killer. Rollie finds himself also caught in a web of intrigue. And of course, when he is on the verge of getting snuffed out, Dennehy as Leo McCarthy pops in to save his ass. Not a bad opening, all things considered.Finally, Leo uncovers the back story, which I won't reveal, lest I be accused of "giving it away" as they say. However, the back story is described almost offhandedly, without even a flashback. Unfortunately, the downside is that, with very little screen time left, neither the history of what's behind the bad guys' motivations nor the bad guys themselves are ever fully developed. I found myself wanting to know more about the circumstances surrounding this back story, the what and the why. Of course, with these kinds of movies, a lot of screen time must be devoted to the baddies chasing the innocent by-standers in shopping malls or in car chases. I guess it's a Hollywood law that American filmmakers must devote a specified minimum amount of time to choreographed running around and shooting so they can legitimately call their project an "action movie".Still the film has its entertainment value. There is a strange chemistry that exists between Brian Dennehy (reprising his role has Leo McCarthy) and Bryan Brown, and again I wish that had been milked for all its worth. Of course, the most entertaining sequence, like the first installment, is the use of movie effects to thwart the bad guys, which works very well. Maybe I appreciated it as a breath of fresh air from the typical cat and mouse chase with automatic weapons that typically climaxes most of these kinds of films.Still very much in the style of a 1980's action movie, although this was 1991, with the typical rock songs spliced in for good measure. With the exception of the use of the special effects against the baddies at the finale, story-wise it is really the equivalent of a two-part episode of "Simon and Simon" with a larger budget.

First: I don't like action movies (anyone who ever read any of my comments probably knows it).But there are a few action movies that contain enough humor to be borderline comedies, and I just love them. After 'Lethal Weapon' (No 1 in the genre) I like FX most.And what about FX2? You can't say it's better, you can't say it's worse, you can't (unfortunately) say it's different from FX1 at all. From the very start (action scenes from making a movie) to the very last (two main characters in Europe with a lot of money belonging to no one, so they can keep it) there are so many similarities that I'm reminded on modern TV coverage of ski races where TV directors put a picture of one competitor over another to compare them. And just like the skiers, these two movies go the same path between the same gates and making the same jumps with just a little divergence from time to time.Comparing to 'Lethal Weapon' there is far less dynamics between main characters, they act as if they do their routine job - and remembering FX1 (where they hardly met at all) and watching first part of FX2 (where they say they haven't met for a long time) you would expect that they had to take some time to adjust one to another so they can cooperate that well. There are also more hard-to-believe plot twists than in part 1, so if that one looked funny though a bit strained, this one is still funny but unbelievable. But if that doesn't bother you, and if you liked part 1, you won't regret watching this sequel (or should I say clone?).

Decent if somewhat belated(5 years??) followup to the '86 suprise hit, has Dennehy and Brown in fine form, some involved monkey business with Vatican medallions, bad cops and computer records. You gotta like the MacGyver-ish stuff they throw in, the indestructible hit-man and of course, That Clown. The Fighting, Animitronic Klown. Quite funny in it's way.This thing is def. tongue in cheek, at little on the confusing side if you try to think about the flips and flops in the plotting; but hey-it's all in fun. Dated but good.**1/2 outta ****.