Dr Peyton Westlake continues to live in the City's sewer system, hiding his disfigured face and working on his synthetic skin. When he steals money from a criminal gang to buy more medical equipment he draws the attention of Peter Rooker. Rooker uses Dr Thorne to get to Westlake and work out how he has become so strong. With Rooker planning to create a small army of `Darkmen' Westlake must learn to trust again to overcome Rooker's plan.
Despite the fact that this was another direct to video sequel and that it was shot at the same time as Darkman 2, it is actually quite good. In terms of the basic story it could have been better (creating super strong street thugs) but really there is plenty in the plot to enjoy. Westlake posing as Rooker and finding joy in Rooker's family life etc brings more humanity to the film than was done in part 2. Obviously the plot does has weaknesses it's very short for one, it's quite clichéd for another, although there are nice touched around Rooker.
The use of OTT visuals and nightmare vision scenes is retained and very like Rami's style in fact some of the shot almost mirror the first film. While Westlake lacks some of the craziness that he had in the first film he is still a tortured soul it's just a shame that this is mixed with the image of him as a sort of Batman figure.
Vosloo (best know as the Mummy) isn't as good as Neeson and sounds like he's reading some of his voice over lines. However he still does OK, but it's pertinent that he takes second billing behind Fahey. It's not Vosloo's fault that his character has become an ill-conceived Batman type. Fahey may well be playing an one-dimensional character but he does it well. He's not a great actor but he can hold his own in TVM's and video movies! The rest of the cast are OK but suffice to say you're never in any doubt that this never saw the inside of many cinemas.
Overall it's not brilliant but it's actually quite good certainly better than the second. Basically you know what know what you're getting and it doesn't let you down. Also it's got a really cool title
.'Die Darkman, Die'
B-movie homage or what!
