eddsnake I started watching this on TV tonight and after being amazed that even a TV movie this bad would make it on to the BBC ended up watching nearly the whole thing.First of all, how many high schools anywhere have their own guard and barbed wire above the entrance to the third floor? And kids whose main purpose for being in school is to take out their History teacher?!! When they're not car-jacking and bringing their new wheels into school to have them modded in 'shop' that is. Then there's the guy who takes Shop, played by BD Wong. Now if you want a bloke who's meant to be so evil that when one of his pupils gets killed (whilst stealing a car for him) he says 'that's the first piece of good news i've had today', why cast a camp bloke of 5'4' as the said baddie?! His tight jumpers and muscular physique make him look more like the barman from the local gay bar than some evil car-jacking mastermind who dabbles in CDT, but there you go.The shoot-outs (inside the school?!) are classic in their own, badly choreographed, pump thousands of bullets at a target ten metres away and miss, then finally take out the target and mutter something witty like 'one down, three to go', way. Then our hero Treat Williams finally gets cornered by four gun toting bad guys and guess what saves him? A couple of canisters releasing what looks like slowly wafting dry ice so that he can make his escape. Then there's the Vietnam vet janitor who has his own war-chest of old military weapons in the basement, and a semi automatic rifle in the cupboard?!! This film teaches that if you want to get the respect of your knife wielding, car-jacking, substitute teacher killing pupils, then the best way to do so is kill a load of their mates and then knock off their 'shop' teacher for good measure. Then you can walk off, laughing weakly with your adoring niece, as the pupils who have just watched one of their teachers get killed by another stand around mouthing 'wow'. I really hope that whoever wrote this doesn't go into politics.Oh and Treat Williams, although he does a good job of spouting forth diatribes whilst messing around with a yo-yo, is as wooden an action hero as I've ever seen.If you want to see a really, really bad film that shouldn't even have made it to 'TV Movie' status then you must watch this. Otherwise avoid it at all costs.

nesluver2 The Substitute was highly enjoyable. Worth the time. Tom Berenger did a great job. Then came Substitute 2. It wasn't bad, but it just had a different feeling to it. First off, Treat Williams is a nice guy figure. Rather than looking tough and hardened, he looks like some guy that spends 30 minutes a day doing his hair in the bathroom mirror. Here's the whole overview of the movie: A bad kid school's most eminent teacher is shot down by a gang. Mercenarie Karl Thommason (Williams) goes in to take care of the teacher's teenage daughter and bring the killers to justice. A lot of what you see in the first film. The next two sequels are also like that. Fun, though. The B-movie really shows in this one. The blood is highly exaggerated. When someone gets shot, it looks like the special FX men just took some ketchup packets and smashed them so it would gush out. And then there's the supposed "sex" scenes. All they are is two teens sitting on a bed passionately kissing. Wow. Break out the condoms. We're gonna have a baby from kissing. Not only that, Thommason doesn't take the gang down right away. The keep having these little encounters, and he just beats on them a little. If I was him, I would kill them on the spot... Okay, so as flawed as this one was, it was still fun. It was visually superior to the first film, which seemed to have been made with cheaper cameras. But that didn't make it bad. It was better. Oh well.

bob the moo Ex-marine Randall Thomasson is a teacher in an inner city school in charge of the difficult class for violent or disaffected youth. When he sees a car jacking by the `brotherhood', a gang of criminals who wear hooded tops backwards. The end result is him being killed. His brother returns from his life as a mercenary to look after his daughter and to uncover who was responsible. He goes under cover as a teacher in his brother's old class and begins to stir things up.The original wasn't that good or successful so why did they feel the need to repeat the formula again. However that's exactly what they do and if you've seen the first then there's no need to watch this film. The plot is exactly the same and full of the same weaknesses – all this killing around a school but no policemen at all? However it is OK in a brainless sort of way. The action is scaled down but there are a few good fights towards the end. Much of the action is `A-Team' style – witness Karl and Joey 6 in a school corridor with 6 men at either end firing automatic weapons and then explain to me how no one got hit at all! It's all pretty dumb but is passable for 90 minutes.Treat Williams is not a great actor but can do OK. Here he isn't as convincing a mercenary as Berenger was (not bitter or tough enough) but he does a good job and his quiet cool style is fun to watch. Those who think there is no connection between this and the first film must have missed the inclusion of the character Joey 6 again, however here he is played well by Angel David. TV fans will be surprised by Michael Michelle (Cleo from ER) and a really different role for Wong (usually a mild mannered priest in Oz). The rest of the cast are all homeboys, gangbanger stereotypes who stand up to Karl but fail and are eventually won over yadayadayada! The main one of interest to me was a rare acting role for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal (Guru to you), many hiphop stars cross over to movies – my question is why he chose to do this?The most interesting thing about the cast of the substitute films is the way they all seem to keep the cast of `Thing to do in Denver when you're dead' in work! Forsythe was in part 1, Williams is in parts 2 and 3 and in part 4 is joined by Bill Nunn. Not amazing I'll grant you but just weird to see them all getting involved!Overall the cast are OK and the story is a straight lift with some name changes. The action is pretty thin but it has a dumb energy and is actually quite good if you're in an undemanding mood.

LebowskiT1000 I'm not really sure what inspired me to see this, I didn't think the first film was anything terribly great, but nonetheless I still felt compelled to watch the sequel.I could be wrong, but I don't think this film has ANYTHING to do with the first film, other than the story is pretty much the same. As far as story goes, if you've seen the first film, then you've seen this one. Other than some minor plot points, the story is virtually the same.The cast was surprisingly good in this film though. I thought Treat Williams did a fine job. I'm surprised the B.D. Wong was in this movie, I think he's a really good actor, and shouldn't bother with films like "The Substitute 2: School's Out", but I'm sure he had his reasons for appearing in this film. Some other good additions to the film are Michael Michele (TV's "ER") and Susan May Pratt (10 Things I Hate About You, Drive Me Crazy, Center Stage), very beautiful women!All in all, I thought the movie was just ok, but nothing worthy of going out of your way to see. If you do end up seeing it, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading,-Chris