BEFORE: Lots of characters carry over into tonight's sequel - even though Michael J. Fox was replaced as the lead actor. Jason Bateman (last seen in "Extract") plays Todd Howard, Scott's cousin. Harold Howard is now "Uncle" Howard, Chubby and Stiles are back (with a different actor playing Stiles), and high-school basketball coach Finstock is now a college boxing coach - because we all know that werewolves are famous for their ability to box.
THE PLOT: Todd Howard is a struggling teenager. Nothing seems to be going very well for him, until he turns into a wolf.
AFTER: So I've got this new pair of sneakers - and they hurt my feet at first, I figured they just needed to be broken in. But as time wore on, and the sneakers gave me blisters, I figured I needed to act - so I added these cushioned insoles, and the situation has improved. But it raises the question - if we have comfort-based technology, why couldn't the sneakers have been made comfortable in the first place? I was clearly willing to spend the extra money to keep my feet from hurting, so why cheap out on the insoles?
It's sort of the same with cheap werewolf movies - you have the technology to make the special effects better on the transition scenes, so why not go for it? And you have the ability to make good movies, so why aren't all werewolf movies (and, by extension, all movies...) better?
In this film, the main character learns that the hot chicks on campus aren't worth pursuing, but the plain geeky girl with low self-esteem is, and that in order to succeed, he has to win at his sport without the benefit of his werewolf powers. Seems to me I've seen those lessons somewhere before...
And for all that's holy, WHERE was the obligatory shot of a referee holding a rule book, saying, "Gee, there's nothing in here that says that a werewolf CAN'T compete..."?
Man, now I really want to see some werewolf movies with some high-quality eye-popping transformation effects...
Also starring (and I use the word loosely...) James Hampton (again), John Astin, Paul Sand (last seen in "The Hot Rock") and Kim Darby.
RATING: 3 out of 10 live frogs (and shouldn't they be dead frogs, for bio class? I'm just sayin'...)
SPOOK-O-METER: 1 out of 10. A boxing werewolf is just ridiculous, not scary at all.
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