“Fine. Wake me up when it’s over.”

Drake’s rating: Drake is done

Drake’s review: Well, we all knew this would happen at some point. After all, everything has to end, even when we don’t want it to. Or maybe some of you out there have just been waiting for this moment, and are now celebrating the fact that the tale of Drake is coming to a close. I have to admit, I thought I’d be happier about it, but looking back there’s a tinge of melancholy. This is it, after all. From now on there won’t be any more Drake.

Well, not John Drake, at least, the Timothy Bottoms character who slept his way through Total Force in 1996 before returning a year later for this, his final turn as the character. And amazingly, the sequel is not as bad as the first film. Absolute Force is still a bad film, but that’s to be expected. What’s surprising is that the badness is far more mundane now, rather than something that should be enclosed in an adamantium capsule and sunk to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

To start off with, the production values are up across the board. Unlike Total Force, Absolute Force doesn’t look like it was shot with a handheld video camera by a drunken chimpanzee swinging from a tree branch. This results in much better looking gunfights and fisticuffs, which have at least decent choreography this time around as well. The computer graphics are also kept to a minimum rather than being intrusive, and generally make sense in the context of the story.

Again, Absolute Force is a bad flick, but at least it’s trying to be an actual movie and has the feel of a lesser effort of someone like an Albert Pyun. To give credit where it’s due, returning director Steven Kaman stepped his game up with this second outing and almost made Absolute Force look and feel like a real movie.

A real bad movie, but still.

So this time around Drake has to deal with a new threat from a terrorist organization called The Alliance. They’re a paramilitary bunch who have several turncoats working for them, including one of Drake’s men, and are attempting to get hold of a neutron bomb. Drake has to put a stop to that nonsense, of course, but since he’s being framed as a murderer he has to find new allies.

He finds a Russian guy who was still hanging around after the first flick (real life MMA competitor Oleg Taktarov) who tells him Frank Stallone is dead but Calista Carradine is still around. She’s a dancer now, which in the vernacular of this flick means “stripper.” Unsurprisingly, she works high kicks into her routine so she’s ready to pack up her bag of guns and take off to yet another industrial park with Drake and the Russian and engage in some stylized violence.

There’s nothing particularly unique about Absolute Force, and like the first film it’s nothing more than a juvenile power fantasy where guns and kicks solve every problem. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the script is still full of faux tough guy dialogue that sounds like it was written by someone who learned how to read from those ‘60s pulp magazines with titles like “All Man” and “Men’s Adventure.” The performances range from Bottoms sleepily looking like he’d really rather be anywhere else to Carradine’s overly physical emoting that makes you wonder if she’s acting or having a seizure.

But still, for all its badness, Absolute Force is so much better than Total Force that you almost wonder if a third film would have improved the formula to the point where it was just blithely below-average. We’re only left to wonder about the imaginary end to a possible trilogy, however, since after the end of this flick Drake wandered off into the sunset with an empty clip and a full flask, never to reappear.

Unlike some Drakes, who stick around long after their expiration date.

Intermission!

• Another Total Force mission. Which means lots of shooting.
• A turncoat? Oh noes!
• “Drake can become quite useful to us, after all.” Eh, really? Usefulness is not a Drake’s strong suit.
• Even by the standards of the ‘90s, that fake video looks ridiculous.
• Drake balances out his night drinking by day drinking.
• Going full-auto on the TV. Drakes are bad with electronics.
• Oleg snaps necks like other people break breadsticks.
• The most awkward sex scene ever. No, just trust me on this. It’s… weird.