Scanners II: The New Order (1991)

Christian Duguay's Scanners 2: The New Order

The dynamic duo from the first film apparently got together and had children. Those children have grown up to become super scanners in this unnecessary followup.

This time, the evil corporation has been replaced by an evil civil servant moonlighting at an evil corporation. A young man meets with him, solves a lovely subplot crime involving poisoned children's milk, finds out his new boss is not nice, and turns against him. The evil civil servant wants to start a "new order," where there would be no crime because the scanners would run everything. The evil corporation does have a bunch of scanners in their basement, hopelessly addicted to a new version of what turned them into scanners in the first place.

This film has the adult children of the original's scanner couple, although the films were only ten years apart. David Cronenberg had nothing to do with the series of sequels his film spawned. Deborah Raffin, second billed, does not show up until an hour and ten minutes into this, her character is explained in such a way that it must have been written in on set.

We are treated to more violence, more gore, more good scanners, and more bad scanners. Obviously, the good scanners win in the end, and yet this was followed by a few more sequels. This is just a retread of the first film, which was no classic to begin with, and I felt the same way here as I did with the original: no recommendation.

This is rated (R) for strong physical violence, strong gun violence, strong gore, and some profanity. May 29, 2002

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