Class of 1999 Part II: The Substitute Reviews

A slack, unnecessary sequel to 1990's robots-on-the-rampage thriller, CLASS OF 1999 II is unfortunately light on the science fiction and action elements that are ostensibly its raison d'etre. In an Oregon high school, stern-faced substitute teacher John Bolen (Sasha Mitchell) kills a quartet of troublemaking punks. On Bolen's trail is CIA agent Gordon D. Ash (Rick Hill), who believes Bolen to be the last of the android teachers developed for the Department of Educational Defense by Dr. Bob Forrest. Bolen turns up next at Monroeville High School, where vicious student Sanders (Gregory West) has killed a classmate in what everyone thinks is an accidental shooting. Only teacher Jenna McKensie (Caitlin Dulany) knows the slaying was intentional, but no one will believe her, including her boyfriend, military collector Emmett Grazer (Nick Cassavetes). Jenna plans to testify against Sanders, and he and his gang begin to intimidate her in ever more violent ways. She soon finds a protector in Bolen, who begins killing off Sanders' cronies. As the student body count rises, suspicion briefly falls on Emmett due to his large weapons collection; he in turn is suspicious of Bolen, who's been encouraging Jenna to resist the threats against her. But after a machine-gun attack on her house, Jenna proclaims that she's had enough and isn't going to testify. Nonetheless, Sanders and his gang plot to kill Jenna during a paint-gun "war game" that Emmett is sponsoring for the students. Bolen invades the game and starts killing the kids off for real, ultimately rescuing Jenna from her attackers. Then Ash arrives and reveals that Bolen is not an android, but Forrest's human son, clad in body armor. Ash tries to convince Bolen to join him in resurrecting Forrest's project, but Bolen kills him and then turns on Jenna. She manages to blow him away with explosives Emmett has stored in an underground bunker, but later, Bolen's murderous mania seems to have been passed on to her. One of too many direct-to-video sequels that owe their existence solely to the profit motive, CLASS OF 1999 II lacks the schlocky thrills, campy edge, and playful casting that made the original entertaining. Screenwriter Mark Sevi's plotting is strictly humdrum, and the John Bolen character is a humorless Terminator wannabe (including his would-be comic one-liners after dispatching his victims), with a couple of hints at inner psychology that aren't fleshed out. Mitchell's flat, affectless performance makes a certain amount of sense when he's supposed to be a robot, but less when he's revealed to be human after all; he's certainly no substitute for the first film's John P. Ryan, Pam Grier, and Patrick Kilpatrick. Aside from schoolrooms decked out in protective glass and chain-link shielding, there's little in the way of futuristic ambience here. Also absent are any significant action scenes; the thrills are limited to some generic gunplay and explosions, staged competently but unexcitingly by director Spiro Razatos (FAST GETAWAY). It's hard to know what led Razatos, a first-rate stunt coordinator on many low-budgeters, to take on this project, since it contains none of the chase-and-crash action that's become his specialty. Indeed, given the evident lack of an adequate budget (Ash's brief flashbacks to the original look more expensive than this entire sequel), it's hard to imagine why anyone bothered. (Violence, nudity, sexual situations, profanity.)