“Kindergarten Cop 2” is not a sequel to the first one. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character does not reappear nor does the villain from the original 1990 action comedy. This one gets a F for total lack of effort or attention to detail. Lundgren’s character is not even a cop, per se, Agent Zack Reed is in the FBI.
There is no cute kid for Dolph to bond with and he romances the other kindergarten teacher (who is roughly 30 years his junior). Lundgren looks great; lean, mean and not much in terms of drag or sag and very few wrinkles.
Still, things must be pretty tough in Seattle if young 20 something teachers have to date a man their father’s age…
Apart from the unlikely love affairs, the plot deals with a Russian gangster whose mistress Reed infiltrated to bring the kingpin down. One year later, a pair of brothers hack the FBI Witness Protection database and offer the information to Zogu (Aleks Paunovic), the Russian gangster. The brother who hacked the system and made a copy of the information on a flash drive is dead. The deceased was a kindergarten teacher.
Reed goes undercover to find the flash drive while Zogu closes in.
“Kindergarten Cop 2,” unlike the Arnold vehicle, has nothing new to offer. There are changes. Gone is the female partner who falls out as the teacher substitute. Reed volunteers up front. This version features children who are neither overly amusing nor engagingly annoying.
The humor, like the May December romance feels forced and not very funny. (Like the overbearing and bellowing FBI head who screams at Reed every time he interacts with the agent. As pointed out on IMDb, this device has been used before, most notably in Schwarzenegger’s “Last Action Hero.” Perhaps this was a homage?)
There are amusing bits here and there. Reed dropping the peanut panicking child when the teacher tells him to and the taser in the “nuts” scene were both worth a chuckle. There were too many “gags” that just did not work however The two slow motion strolls by the kids and the Dalai Lama “I’m okay, you’re okay” liberal school never really felt right.
The overall feel of the film was sloppy and rushed. Even continuity was lacking. In the chocolate cookie “sugar rush” scene, Reed gets two giant blue hand prints on his shirt. (One of the kids was pouring blue finger paint every where.) By the time Reed gets home one of the blue handprints is a combination of yellow and blue and much smaller, while the other handprint disappears completely.
(Come on chaps, the film was hardly complex surely it would have been easy to get the colours and size right.)
The film was very much a cartoon version of the original. In the first movie, the children were the backdrop and kept safe throughout, i.e. not part of the actual criminal proceedings. In this iteration, which once again has nothing to do with the first film, the children are used to save the good guys.
Despite a complete lack of logic, the film does have amusing moments. Sadly these never cross into area of outright hilarity. There are no, “tumah” moments in this movie. There is a clever moment where the kids poem about the class guinea pig turns out to be an acrostic poem and Reed figures it out.
“Kindergarten Cop 2” is rated PG-13 and it seems a bit of overkill as there is not too much violence nor is there any gore or sex. Presumably violent action against the family jewels is damaging to young minds. Clearly the movie is aimed at the younger members of the audience, even younger than the first one and it may well be that this targeted demographic enjoy the feature.
The most annoying thing about the film is the clear product placement of the Twixt bars that Reed likes to snack on. There is no mistake about the brand name as each time the name is clearly seen and even mentioned by the players. At one point Zack is broiling a steak and it is surprising that the meat company was not promoted alsol.
It is just as well that this can be seen on Netflix. Paying for cinema tickets would have been annoying and somewhat criminal. “Kindergarten Cop 2” is a 2.5 out of 5 stars. More irritating than funny, watch this only if there is literally nothing else on Netflix. Lundgren fans may enjoy this blasé yawn fest, but not necessarily.
