Eighties sequels are so wild. Look at the difference between the first and third Rocky movies. Or, using Sylvestor Stallone’s other iconic franchise, look at the contrast between First Blood and its sequel.
The original Angel is basically a gritty social drama. Avenging Angel is an action movie.
Even the recasting of Donna Wilkes with Betsy Russell makes sense for the pumped-up, cartoonish aesthetic of the new movie. Wilkes was believable as a teenager, working for the film’s more sombre and tragic tone.
While Russell is actually younger than her predecessor, she reads as older, and she is costumed to foreground her physique. Whereas Angel shied away from trying to sexualise its heroine, Avenging Angel foregrounds it.
Indeed, shorn of the aspirations (or pretensions?) of the original, Avenging Angel is more of a straight genre piece.
Aside from a few cast members (Kit Carson, Susan Tyrell), you could be forgiven for thinking this was a completely new movie.
It would probably play better that way.
I watched the two movies back to back, and the difference in style and tone is not immediately apparent.
The moment the movie really jumps the shark, when our heroes try to break Kit Carson out of the sanitarium.
Filled with pratfalls and overtly “comedic” music, the scene basically re-sets the table for the film (Susan Tyrell goes for broke pretending to be a grieving widow).
Everything in the film is cranked up to extremes. The heroes are super-good looking and super-virtuous, the violence is over-the-top and the whole movie takes place in a cartoonish day-glo environment that feels more like the Girl Hunt sequence from The Band Wagon, than the gritty real-world locations of the first movie.
The whole movie is goofy - one bad guy slips while running away and slides out a window.
Though made by New World, this movie feels like a Cannon picture. It feels like the camera could pan into Exterminator 2 or one of the Death Wish sequels.
And unlike the original Angel, this movie has proper action movie villains: OTT yuppies.
In a skewed way, these villains sum up the movie: the film creates a bizarre class dynamic, as Angel gathers a collection of outsiders to take down these wealthy killers.
In the lead, Betsy Russell is gorgeous but a little flat as Angel 2.0. It does not help that the character seems to have been smoothed out - she appears to be completely well-adjusted, and her dynamic with her friends lacks warmth and sense of history.
Angel is presented more like a vigilante, getting into costume (hairspray, tank top, hot pants, an oversized peacemaker) before returning to her old haunts to take down the bad guys. She looks like an action figure, and is about as deep.
Overall, the characters feel like archetypes, which works for this movie. I cannot say I enjoyed it, but the movie seems to know exactly what it is.
It feels like the filmmakers want to replicate the ridiculousness of the original’s finale, and extend that for the entire movie.
If that was their aim, they succeeded.
The original has more bite, but on its own terms Avenging Angel is junky fun.
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