Darkman’s still trying to fix that liquid skin problem, and this time he forms a partnership with one of the doctors who did the experimental surgery on him in the first place. She wants to try out a new technique to rewire his nerves so he has feeling again, and he agrees to be her guinea pig on the condition that he can borrow her top of the line DNA sequencer for his skin project. Both end up getting what they want: the equipment helps him “break the 99 minute barrier” (again – they seem to have forgotten he already did it in part 2) and she rewires his nerves to a remote control device because actually she works for a crazy steroid dealer (Jeff Fahey) who’s pissed off because Darkman stole a bunch of his money and now he wants to study him to find out how he gets his super darkstrength.

DIE DARKMAN, DIE has the same director as part 2 but this time it’s written by Colleary and Werb, the guys who wrote DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH and FACE/OFF. Come to think of it these guys are obsessed with faces and masks. Colleary even wrote an episode of the new Alfred Hitchcock Presents about a woman who has plastic surgery to look like someone else and Werb was a writer on THE MASK. Weird. But the point is they are pretty good writers and went beyond the DTV call of duty on this one.

The majority of DTV sequels (and DTV in general) is pretty bland and predictable. Usually it’s just a cheap rehash of the first one, not alot of ideas, not alot of exciting moments, not much happens. But DARKMAN III has all kinds of shit: Darkman being forced to run an “obstacle course” that involves blowing up a car and running across oil barrels that explode and fly like rockets as people shoot at him, Darkman having to remove an implant from his brain using plyers, even Darkman disguising himself just to show up at the villain’s daughter’s school play so she won’t be sad. They came up with all kinds of funny ideas and clever angles on the DARKMAN concept. (more…)

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