A year after the success of 1972\s "Superfly", Sig Shore and Ron O'Neal decided a sequel was in order and after drafting a story idea between the two of them, they hired Alex Haley, later of ROOTS fame, to write the screenplay. O'Neal also let his ego work overtime by assuming the director's chair for this sequel.
When released by Paramount in 1973, the movie was a huge disaster both commercially and critically. After I saw this movie on VHS, I saw why.
In this film, Priest is now living in Rome retired from dealing cocaine, although he is still wary of his former operation in the USA. He meets an African mercenary (Roscoe Lee Brown) who seeks his aide in helping him gets some weapons across a certain part of Africa while avoiding the local authorities and other illegal weapons runners as well. Priest informs him that he has no interest in this much to the chagrin of the mercenary.. Along the way, he meets someone who seems like an old friend of his from the states named Jordan (Robert Guillaume) and during his spare time, he now plays poker with Italian businessmen and gambles for a living while his faithful girlfriend Georgia (reprised by Sheila Frazier) continues to stand by him hoping that one day, due to him now being financially secure, they can start a family, but Priest shows no interest in having a family. The mercenary later reiterates his offer to Priest, and although Priest still shows no interest, he decides to visit the motherland of his ancestors and realizes that he can't turn his back on this and soon, he decides to join the fight. I won't give too much away as I don't want to spoil it for all of you who haven't seen this movie as of yet.
While it wasn't a bad idea for a film in itself, and despite a pretty well written script by Alex Haley, the movie falls short in a lot of ways. Firstly, O'Neal's direction of this film is extremely sloppy and amateurish. Secondly, the movie is 87 minutes of boring and listless scenes where really nothing eventful happens and while waiting for anything to happen, all it induces is yawns of boredom and even when the action starts, it's way too late for anything of action to happen because much of the movie is wasted waiting on anything to arouse interest until that happens. Plus, the action also looks like it was rehashed from another war movie prior to this. Despite some good performances by Brown, Guillaume and Frazier and a solid jazz and soul soundtrack by African band Osibasa. This film is nothing more than a sloppily constructed mess that relies more on atmosphere than on anything totally solid to make a film arouse interest and also, entertain. When I watched this, I yawned so much more than on any other boring film I have ever watched prior to this one. O'Neal was a much better actor than a director and this film proves it, although he would return to the director's chair for the.1991 Made For Cable TV film; "Up Against the Wall.", which I haven't seen as of yet, but plan on because Marla Gibbs is in that particular film and when I do, I will write a review on that.
IMHO, this movie should have had "Avoid at all costs" written all over it because this is a movie to avoid at all costs as it is boring, weak, awful and above all, totally unnecessary.
Stick with the first Superfly from 1972 as that is THE superior movie over this sequel and that later sequel "The Return of Superfly" and also, it is a whole lot better than this and that latter sequel. By avoiding this film, you'll be doing yourself a favor.
When released by Paramount in 1973, the movie was a huge disaster both commercially and critically. After I saw this movie on VHS, I saw why.
In this film, Priest is now living in Rome retired from dealing cocaine, although he is still wary of his former operation in the USA. He meets an African mercenary (Roscoe Lee Brown) who seeks his aide in helping him gets some weapons across a certain part of Africa while avoiding the local authorities and other illegal weapons runners as well. Priest informs him that he has no interest in this much to the chagrin of the mercenary.. Along the way, he meets someone who seems like an old friend of his from the states named Jordan (Robert Guillaume) and during his spare time, he now plays poker with Italian businessmen and gambles for a living while his faithful girlfriend Georgia (reprised by Sheila Frazier) continues to stand by him hoping that one day, due to him now being financially secure, they can start a family, but Priest shows no interest in having a family. The mercenary later reiterates his offer to Priest, and although Priest still shows no interest, he decides to visit the motherland of his ancestors and realizes that he can't turn his back on this and soon, he decides to join the fight. I won't give too much away as I don't want to spoil it for all of you who haven't seen this movie as of yet.
While it wasn't a bad idea for a film in itself, and despite a pretty well written script by Alex Haley, the movie falls short in a lot of ways. Firstly, O'Neal's direction of this film is extremely sloppy and amateurish. Secondly, the movie is 87 minutes of boring and listless scenes where really nothing eventful happens and while waiting for anything to happen, all it induces is yawns of boredom and even when the action starts, it's way too late for anything of action to happen because much of the movie is wasted waiting on anything to arouse interest until that happens. Plus, the action also looks like it was rehashed from another war movie prior to this. Despite some good performances by Brown, Guillaume and Frazier and a solid jazz and soul soundtrack by African band Osibasa. This film is nothing more than a sloppily constructed mess that relies more on atmosphere than on anything totally solid to make a film arouse interest and also, entertain. When I watched this, I yawned so much more than on any other boring film I have ever watched prior to this one. O'Neal was a much better actor than a director and this film proves it, although he would return to the director's chair for the.1991 Made For Cable TV film; "Up Against the Wall.", which I haven't seen as of yet, but plan on because Marla Gibbs is in that particular film and when I do, I will write a review on that.
IMHO, this movie should have had "Avoid at all costs" written all over it because this is a movie to avoid at all costs as it is boring, weak, awful and above all, totally unnecessary.
Stick with the first Superfly from 1972 as that is THE superior movie over this sequel and that later sequel "The Return of Superfly" and also, it is a whole lot better than this and that latter sequel. By avoiding this film, you'll be doing yourself a favor.