Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: A kid just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to foil various terrorist plots.
Review: Although these are really cornball movies from the video rental era, I kind of enjoy them for what they are. However, the real draw for me to revisit these two films was, of course, my darling Ami Dolenz. Unfortunately, she only shows up in "Demolition University" instead of both entries. Her character is, admittedly, kind of annoying, but I love to see my girl work nonetheless. For casual viewers, I don't imagine much entertainment to be had unless you're a fan of Corey Haim or like this brand of cheesy movie in general; I have always enjoyed the two Coreys though. This was during Mr. Haim's drug-filled days, but, surprisingly, he pulls off reasonable performances and out-acts the rest of the cast for the most part regardless. One more thing I want to address is that the addition of Alan Thicke in "Demolition High" was awesome. They really made a misstep by not getting him to come back for the sequel. Anyway, let's check these two films out.
Demolition High: As many have observed, this is, more or less, a "Die Hard" ripoff. You have fake terrorists pretending to be extremists in order to rob some cash-incineration plant. Mr. Haim plays a kid named Lenny who is the son of the police chief or whatever Mr. Thicke's character is supposed to be. Lenny conveniently avoids capture by the terrorists when they round up hostages at the school in order to stall for their plan to become complete. Speaking of which, the plan is pretty farfetched as they have a missile or whatever aimed at a nuclear reactor that they're using for leverage along with the hostages. Lenny uses Kevin McCallister-esque traps to kill the terrorists which is dumb since he could steal their guns. Oh, and the reason Lenny can do all of these things is simply because he learned shit from his dad and the mean streets of the Bronx. Right. Eventually, Lenny, in conjunction with the police and FBI, manage to beat all the terrorists and disarm their missile before they're all blown up. The ending is really lame with Lenny suddenly hooking up with the one chick who was pretty hot. One other thing worth noting is the main bad chick who people fixate on; she is hot, but her magically popping up alive toward the end is just like the dude who was hanged in "Die Hard." Despite the obvious budget limitations, and ripoff story, this was the kind of shit I used to watch in order to have more plots to my toy battles. It's not completely horrendous if you understand the dynamics of the rental store era, but it's not good by any means either.
Demolition University: I don't think this will come as much of a shock, but this was not as good as the last film. Sure, it has my dear Ms. Dolenz, but the terrorists were lamer and they missed a chance to play off the last installment; in fact, Lenny doesn't even mention the events of the last movie. This time around, Iraqi extremists and a rogue, black ops soldier steal a virus, or whatever, that they intend to pour into the water supply. In beyond contrived fashion, Lenny sneaks aboard a class trip, that happens to have Ms. Dolenz, and is going to the water plant at the exact moment the terrorists take it over. Once more, Lenny uses his little tricks to kill the terrorists with the assistance of Ms. Dolenz. The only major difference this time is that the terrorists turn on one another toward the end which kind of took away from the satisfaction of each getting killed. By the end, Lenny stops the virus from spreading, and they narrowly escape before the plant blows up. Ehh...predictable and lame, but it has the same kind of charm as DH. Ms. Dolenz does help brighten up each scene, but the bad guys were lamer despite apparent efforts to make them amusing as with DH. Really...this movie needed Alan Thicke!
Overall, you're going to get exactly what you expect given the time frame these movies were made. There is mild entertainment to be had and you could look at them in a so-bad-it's-good kind of manner. You also have a few B-actors mixed in to add a little flavor to the experience so there's that to consider. It's funny, I watched these movies when they came out back in the '90s, but I didn't recognize Ami Dolenz from "Miracle Beach." I guess I needed the genie outfit to truly seal the deal in my fantasies. Nevertheless, she is certainly the highlight here and the main reason I bothered to track these films down. If you're a big Corey fan, these may be worth it as well--just don't go into either of these movies with realistic expectations of them being good.
Notable Moment: In DH when the kids are reacting to hearing police sirens. Uhh...the school is already surrounded at this point and now you can hear something? Plus, there were already helicopters, a ton of gunfire, and a damn bazooka explosion they didn't hear! That's just lovely.
Final Rating: DH 4.5/10 and DU 4/10
Now that's some sexy Dolenz action right there!
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