Kindergarten Cop 2...Review

by Al Kessel


When I heard Kindergarten Cop 2 was being made, my first thought was WHY? My second thought was, oh brother, this WON'T be good. Well, I just finished watching the review copy given to us and you know what? I'm not ashamed to admit when I'm wrong. BUT...this is NOT one of those times. Although not a completely TERRIBLE movie, I wouldn't say that Kindergarten Cop 2 is a must see, or even easily recommended, movie to see. 

Instead of creating an entirely new scenario for this go around, they opted to regurgitate many of the gags and plots from the original Kindergarten Cop, but with much less success. 

This time around, instead of a local cop, the 'hero' is Zack Reed (played by veteran action star Dolph Lundgren), a gruff, hard as nails, VERY LARGE FBI agent who'd rather break the rules than play by them (sound familiar?). Agent Reed is assigned to recover very sensitive data stolen by some very bad men...duh duh duh! So, of course, where else would this sensitive data be hidden? Why, on a flash drive in a prestigious private school! And, Agent Reed must go undercover as a...yeah, you guessed it, a kindergarten teacher! That's all you're getting in the way of plot details, cuz, well, you know we don't spoil movies. Even stinkers. Anyway...

Ok, first off, the original Kindergarten Cop was released in 1990 and was a great, fun, and funny film. Why anyone felt the need to make a sequel nearly 30 years later is anyones guess. Well, ok, they probably ran out of original ideas and thought playing off a hit film from 30 years ago was a good idea. Which is why it went straight to DVD, right? Anywho, I have a pet peeve when it comes to weapons fire in movies and TV shows. When a bullet hits something, it typically leaves a hole, or if fired at glass...it BREAKS the glass. But in one scene, the bad guys are shooting up the Seattle FBI offer, Reed and his partner (played rather absurdly by Bill Bellamy), use a candy vending machine as cover as they push it out into a hallway, and overtake the bad guys. And we see the bullets BOUNCING OFF THE GLASS? There's also a plethora of continuity issues: for some odd reason, Dolph's hair keeps parting on the left, then on the right, then back on the left throughout the first part of the movie; Dolph's tie changes a few times within the same scenes; in one scene, the kindergarten kids smear blue paint all over Dolph's shirt. Yet, when he goes home for the day, there is very little blue paint and a lot of yellow. And the FBI director (played by Danny Wattley) is a joke. Not sure why, but they chose to portray him as a bit of a overly scripted cliche, shouting inches from Agent Reeds face, constantly acting as if he was on some sort of drug. I liked him less than most of the bad guys in the movie. All in all, most of the supporting actors, including the children, were annoying. 

I really wanted to like Kindergarten Cop 2. I loved the original, and though I had much, much lower expectations for a sequel, this movie sank WAY below what I'd hoped for. I like Dolph Lundgren. He's no Oscar winning actor by any stretch, but he's earned his place in the B action movie genre. However, this spectacle may have damaged his rep! 

On a scale of 1-5 'IT'S NOT A TOOMAH's, Kindergarten Cop 2 earns a 1. Sorry Dolph. 

Kindergarten Cop 2 is now available on DVD, NetFlix, YouTube, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies and Vimeo.

**We were given a copy of Kindergarten Cop 2 on DVD in exchange for an honest review.