Possible minor spoilers.
Often, when a great film is made, a sequel is inevitable--for financial reasons if for nothing else. And every once in a while, a sequel will be so dispiritingly awful, so hellbent on destroying everything that worked so well about the original, that we feel compelled to ignore it and assume that the story ended with Part 1. Staying Alive...Exorcist 2: The Heretic...Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby...and now The Rage: Carrie 2. Yes, it seems that even after 23 years, no film is safe.
Let's see--how to explain what went wrong? Well, imagine Carrie with all the emotional elements excised and the material "updated" for yammering, self-referential mallrats. Yes, it's that bad. Excuse me while I fire off mistakes at random. This film cost a needless $21 million (compared to the original's modest but well-utilized $1.8 million), and the money was apparently used in the hiring of talent-dry teenybopper marquee value; they might as well have stuffed the cash down the garbage disposal--the result would've been the same. Amy Irving is wasted; she is here to establish a link with the first film, and she is cruelly discarded after serving that purpose. Emily Bergl obviously has talent, but she can't do much with the material she's given.
And what material! This time, the emphasis is not on emotional pain, but on sappy teen romance and dialogue more suited to the WB network. Elements from the original (frizzy-haired fanatic momma) and new (again, "updated") ideas are tossed together, and the result is a mangled mess. Carrie worked so well because the title character was so odd, desperate, tortured. Here, the lead is all too functional and aware. So why does she go to the party? Why does she accept their apologies (and so readily)? I was a tormented 16-year-old when this movie came out, so this lapse in logic really struck me.
Of course, since this is a sequel to Carrie, the girl is telekinetic. The movie even botches this. In Carrie, the extrasensory elements were an extension of her emotions; here, they are far more gratuitous. For the final holocaust, the gore is of a more extreme nature, but they can't even do THAT right! This time, they use computer generation. I am not scared of an expensive cartoon. I have no earthly clue why they insist on using computer generation when the same effects could be accomplished much more convincingly and economically with a little piano wire and a few gallons of stage blood.
What else is wrong? Everything, truthfully. Someone's bizarre idea of visual flair is switching between color and black-and-white and stretching the picture. The music is routine. The plot is needlessly convoluted (I know it's based on a true story--that doesn't make it effective). In short, please do yourself a favor and stick with the original. Just ignore The Rage. Let Carrie White rest in peace.
Often, when a great film is made, a sequel is inevitable--for financial reasons if for nothing else. And every once in a while, a sequel will be so dispiritingly awful, so hellbent on destroying everything that worked so well about the original, that we feel compelled to ignore it and assume that the story ended with Part 1. Staying Alive...Exorcist 2: The Heretic...Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby...and now The Rage: Carrie 2. Yes, it seems that even after 23 years, no film is safe.
Let's see--how to explain what went wrong? Well, imagine Carrie with all the emotional elements excised and the material "updated" for yammering, self-referential mallrats. Yes, it's that bad. Excuse me while I fire off mistakes at random. This film cost a needless $21 million (compared to the original's modest but well-utilized $1.8 million), and the money was apparently used in the hiring of talent-dry teenybopper marquee value; they might as well have stuffed the cash down the garbage disposal--the result would've been the same. Amy Irving is wasted; she is here to establish a link with the first film, and she is cruelly discarded after serving that purpose. Emily Bergl obviously has talent, but she can't do much with the material she's given.
And what material! This time, the emphasis is not on emotional pain, but on sappy teen romance and dialogue more suited to the WB network. Elements from the original (frizzy-haired fanatic momma) and new (again, "updated") ideas are tossed together, and the result is a mangled mess. Carrie worked so well because the title character was so odd, desperate, tortured. Here, the lead is all too functional and aware. So why does she go to the party? Why does she accept their apologies (and so readily)? I was a tormented 16-year-old when this movie came out, so this lapse in logic really struck me.
Of course, since this is a sequel to Carrie, the girl is telekinetic. The movie even botches this. In Carrie, the extrasensory elements were an extension of her emotions; here, they are far more gratuitous. For the final holocaust, the gore is of a more extreme nature, but they can't even do THAT right! This time, they use computer generation. I am not scared of an expensive cartoon. I have no earthly clue why they insist on using computer generation when the same effects could be accomplished much more convincingly and economically with a little piano wire and a few gallons of stage blood.
What else is wrong? Everything, truthfully. Someone's bizarre idea of visual flair is switching between color and black-and-white and stretching the picture. The music is routine. The plot is needlessly convoluted (I know it's based on a true story--that doesn't make it effective). In short, please do yourself a favor and stick with the original. Just ignore The Rage. Let Carrie White rest in peace.