Admirable film.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear) returns to the swamp to visit her stepdad and learns that he's doing strange experiments that are turning people into mutants. Before long she meets Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) who was a victim of her stepfather's and before long the two are falling for each other while he is battling the bad guys.I must admit right up front that I was never a big fan of Wes Craven's SWAMP THING. I tried watching it a couple times as a kid and then again as an adult but it just never worked for me. To me the film was way too serious and it seemed to forget that it should be fun. THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING comes from Jim Wynorski and there's no question that it captures the lighter mood of a comic book and delivers some fun throughout its running time.That's not to say that this here is a perfect movie because it's far from that. Truth be told, I can understand why some people wouldn't like this and especially since it does go over-the-top with its humor. I think the film was made campy on purpose and that's proven with some of the one-liners plus it never takes itself overly serious. The campy nature works well and especially during the action scenes as well as with creature designs. The mutants all look rather good in a low-budget way and help add to the fun.Of course, the story itself is basically THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU with pinches of the first film thrown in. For the most part I thought Durock was good in the lead, although the bad dubbing certainly didn't help the character. I also like Locklear in the part as she did the "dumb blonde" thing kind of well and she was certainly easy on the eyes. The villains in the film aren't the most memorable but they're far from awful as well.THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING has a different tone than the first movie and for my money that's okay.

This the sequel to "The Swamp Thing," where the evil Dr. Arcane (Louis Jourdan) returns and has a new science lab full of creatures transformed by genetic mutation. In order to gain immortality, he chooses his stepdaughter, Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear), as the key in his immortality experiment.The movie attempted to blend in comic relief, a superhero feel, and sci-fi action. What resulted, is a very campy film with average acting, forced humor, and silly action scenes. But, if you look at the video/DVD cover graphic of the Swamp Thing carrying a smiling Heather Locklear, it tells you that this film is meant to be a fantasy campfest - not the foreboding, serious, doom and gloom story like its prequel.I could do without the two annoying kids in the movie, but the rest of the characters were quite hilarious to watch, especially that of Heather Locklear (loved her deadpan delivery and witty humor). The monster action starts almost right away, with the Swamp Thing fighting one of Dr. Arcane's mutated creatures in the swamp. And, the action continues on with the Swamp Thing battling incompetent bad guys left and right.Not a scary film at all, just full of creepy looking creatures. The plot was rather fast-paced, but the story was the basic mad scientist story-line. Not much suspense in the film, but full of campy fun and humor that isn't all bad.Grade C+

THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING is a sequel to the Wes Craven original, directed by Jim Wynorski this time around. Given that Wynorski has never made a decent movie, the odds are stacked against this one too, and so it proves. This is silly, campy film throughout, one which is bogged down by awful overacting from the supporting players and a general lack of coherence.The story sees the titular character returning to fight villain Louis Jourdan once more, after he somehow survived at the end of the last picture. There's some rubbery action and lots of posing from starlet Heather Locklear, but the whole thing's a cheese fest along the lines of the TROLL movies. I always found Swamp Thing one of the silliest comic book heroes (sillier even than the Toxic Avenger) and so it proves here.

Return of the Swamp Thing takes the best aspect of the original Wes Craven cult classic (its camp value) and also the worst (its discontinuity with the comics) to produce an exceedingly silly and over-the-top film that ranks right up there with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes in terms of sheer comic-bookish hilarity.The casting works surprisingly well, despite the use of B- and C-list actors. Dick Durock, once again, brings far more class to the role of the Swamp Thing than the writing would seem to allow. And Louis Jordan, while completely unlike the Arcane seen in the comics in every way, is deliciously brilliant in every villainous role he's every played (see Octopussy as an example of a brilliant Jordan performance in an otherwise uninspired movie).Plus, what's not to love about Heather Locklear? Sure, she's missing Abby's Transylvanian accent from the comic. Sure, she portrays Abby as far more airheaded than she was in the comic. And sure, she's not wearing comic-book Abby's trademark jean cutoffs and read shirt. But this is Heather Locklear, folks, and she more than makes up for it every time she smiles. (Hey, I'm reviewing a corny movie...what better way to do so than to make corny statements?)Rumors abound that we might someday see a new Swamp Thing film, this time built around the landmark origin story Alan Moore brought to the character. We can only hope. In the meantime, both Swamp Thing films (while hardly high cinema) are still great B-movie fun. Make yourself some popcorn, check 'em both out and be sure to leave your brain in the swamp.Rich Handley Roots of the Swamp Thing http://www.swampthingroots.com