Detonator II: Night Watch (1995)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Watching Paint Dry

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

My parents recently spent a weekend with us, and somehow Detonator II: Night Watch became the DVD of choice for Saturday night. (My mother and my wife like Pierce Brosnan and my dad likes to see things get blown up.) We sat through till the end when my mother, who was born in Pennsylvania and has a kind of language all her own, summed up the experience: "it lacked hither and thither." I really couldn't have put it better myself.

The film starts with what I assume is a "flashback" to Detonator I, then moves on to its own plot. Brosnan gets hired to find some art forgers, who are also planning to take over the world via a satellite that controls the world's telephones. Reluctantly paired with "Baywatch" babe Alexandra Paul, he travels to Hong Kong for several long stretches of plot and a couple of fairly exciting set-pieces, such as Brosnan scaling the side of a building.

This straight-to-video feature was based on a novel by Alistair MacLean (The Guns of Navarone) and refers to a Rembrandt painting. One of its underlying themes is that most people can't tell a forgery from the real thing and that they're usually happy either way. Unfortunately, it was easy enough to tell Detonator II from a real movie.