Canada/USA. 2024.
Crew
Director – Jeff Chan, Screenplay – Jeff Chan, Jesse Lavercombe, Sherren Lee & Chris Paré, Producers – Robbie Amell, Stephen Amell, Jeff Chan, Steven Hoban, Matthew Kariatsumari & Chris Paré, Photography – Marie Davignon, Music – Ryan Taubert, Visual Effects Supervisors – Brian Huynh & Sophia Jooyon Lee, Visual Effects – Playfight VFX (Supervisor – Brian Huynh), Special Effects Supervisor – Mike Innanen, Production Design – Kai Boydell. Production Company – Collective Pictures/Copperheart Entertainment/XYZ Films.
Cast
Robbie Amell (Connor Reed), Stephen Amell (Garrett Kelton), Sirena Gulamgaus (Pavani Gilani), Alex Mallari Jr. (Sergeant ‘King’ Kingston), Aaron Abrams (Detective Davis), Moe Jeudy-Lamour (Officer Cirelli), Jean Yoon (Mina Seok), Sammy Azero (Tarak Gilani), Jessica Allen (Tamera), Jane Moffat (June)
Plot
Connor Reed is released after a five-year jail sentence but wants nothing more to do with Garrett Kelton and his criminal organisation. He returns to Lincoln City and instead takes a job as a janitor at a youth centre. At the same time, the profile of police Sergeant ‘King’ Kingston has been rising in the media. King has employed robotic dogs in frontline police work, while insisting to the public that they are not lethal. King also has a deal on the side with Garrett’s drug operation. Meanwhile, Tarak steals a stash from a drug drop but is spotted whereupon King sends one of the robot dogs to kill him. Tarak’s younger sister Pavani is witness and flees. Connor finds Pavani in a shed at the youth centre. They are forced to flee when King’s police officers come seeking to eliminate her as a witness. Connor’s only recourse is to seek help from Garrett. However, due to Garrett’s underhand deals with King, Connor cannot be certain where Garrett’s loyalties lie.
The Canadian-made Code 8 (2019) was one of the few original non-comic-book adapted Superhero Films made during the 2010s/20s. Cousins Robbie and Stephen Amell starred in a story set in a future where there are superpowers but the powered are an underclass and there is an illicit market for a drug distilled from their blood. Code 8: Part II is a sequel that reunites director Jeff Chan and the Amells.
Clearly the success of the first film has meant that a bigger budget could be afforded when it comes to Code 8: Part II. The first film was notedly cut-price when it came to effects and the depiction of the superheroics. By the point of the sequel, things have markedly improved when it comes to being able to show things like the robotic dogs and the superpowers in action. Jeff Chan does a particularly good job of staging the superheroic battles, especially a shootout in the street with various powers employed against the robot dogs.
The bigger effects budget also allows an expanded depiction of superpowers – Sammy Azero has a nifty human chameleon ability and can blend into brick walls and the like, Robbie Amell wields full-on electrical blasts, while there is a scene where we get a séance of sorts that has something to do with erasing Sirena Gulamgaus’s memory. It is here that Jeff Chan starts to show some promise as a director.
Code 8 was a caper film, Code 8: Part II ups the scale of the show and creates a more complex world involving corrupt policing. The introduction this time is Sirena Gulamgaus as the child psychic. The child psychic or gifted child on the run is a theme that has appeared in a number of films from Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and Firestarter (1984) to Sole Survivor (2000), The Darkest Minds (2018), Freaks (2018) and Doctor Sleep (2019). Code 8: Part II treads familiar ground in rehashing these without anything that is new and original to the treatment. It is an average plot no more.
The Amells expectedly give handsome and assured performances. The surprise face in the film is young Sirena Gulamgaus who gives a fine performance as the orphan child prodigy.
Trailer here