Hey a tough mercenary goes undercover as a teacher to gain revenge on a tough gang who are running drugs ! Where have I seen that movie before ? Hey I saw the exact same plot in a movie called THE SUBSTITUTE with Tom Berenger going into a tough inner school to wipe out a drugs gang . In fact both plots feature the new arrival going into class and telling the kids about 'Nam . If there's any difference between the movies it's that the sequel is even dumber than the original

How dumb is it Theo ? Well for a start we see a tough gang of black kids wearing hoods similar to the KKK ! I'm just thinking that any homies dressed like the Klu Klux Klan might make themselves very unpopular with other gangs in the ghetto . But it gets dumber believe it or not . The gang tries to kill a girl then after they've killed someone else they drive off leaving the girl alive to become a possible witness . Later on the cops drive past and it's only then that the gang decide to try and kill the hero . I've never tried to bump anyone off but surely it's a bad idea to shoot someone when the cops are at the other end of the street ?

As you can expect in these type of movies none of the cast will be nominated for Oscars , but it's a shame that Berenger couldn't reprise his role since Treat Williams isn't much of a treat in the acting stakes . I'm also very sorry to pick on one of the cast by name but Susan May Pratt as Anya Thomasson is absolutely abysmal , she is totally wooden and mumbles her lines like she's reading out a shopping list . The only half way decent acting comes from some of the gang members , but how difficult is it to play foul mouthed gangsters ?

I hope no one picks me up wrong but the only positive thing I can say about SCHOOL'S OUT is that the director has cast all black actors as gang members . How many movies have seen featuring a tough ghetto gang that is one third black , one third white , and one third Latino ? Too many would be the answer and some congratulations are in order for not taking a PC view of ethnic composition of gangs . It should also be pointed out many of the victims of this gang violence are black themselves so at least this aspect rings true . But if you want a realistic movie you might want to miss the bell for THE SUBSTITUTE 2 : SCHOOLS OUT

The murky conclusion of director Steven Pearl's straight-to-video sequel "The Substitute 2: School's Out" undercuts an otherwise okay sequel that goes to enormous ends to establish itself as the follow-up to the Tom Berenger original. Treat Williams plays an entirely different character who knew Shale, and "School's Out" concerns his search for the person who gunned down his brother in cold blood in broad daylight. Williams is suave but decisive as Karl Thomasson who masquerades as the new substitute teacher. B.D. Wong is superb as the slimy villain. The Miami high school in the first film, the school here is a zoo with abrasive students who play their boom boxes in class and tote around deadly weapons like ice picks. Unlike the villains in the predecessor who were trafficking in illegal drugs, the bad guys here are operating a chop shop for stolen cars that nets them a $100-thousand-a-month. Like the original, the most considerate character turns out to be the source of the trouble. During the first three-fourths of "The Substitute 2: School's Out," the scenarists of the first movie--Roy Frumkes, Rocco Simonelli, and Alan Ormsby--establish the reason for the sequel, neatly place the characters in the context of the original, and do a good job of integrating Karl into the action. The action scenes themselves, when Karl has to practice his expertise on the disruptive students as well as the adult villains, are fine, but everything collapses in the last quarter hour when the fatherless daughter discovers who killed her father. The filmmakers never have a confrontation scene between the hero and this villain. Moreover, the disruptive students in the classroom who should go down as hard as their counterparts did in the first movie are never shown receiving their just comeuppance for their crimes. The yo-yo scene where Karl explains the use of a yo-yo as a weapon is well-done as is the 'compromise' scene when he toss Mace's purloined boom box out the second story class room. Presumably, Mace is supposed to be the Jerome character here. The single character who doesn't have a counterpart from the first movie is Michael Michele; she plays a sympathetic school employee, Kara Lavelle, who is attracted to Karl. Initially, she met him at his brother's funeral. Not surprisingly, Karl's niece (Susan May Pratt of "Drive Me Crazy")doesn't trust Karl at first, but she breaks down and gets to like him. The only character here that is truly exceptional is the high school custodian, Johnny Bartee (Daryl Edwards of "Arthur 2: On the Rocks"),who has an unique way of entering and exiting through the tunnels in the walls. He is a former Vietnam soldier who specialized in going into tunnels to flush out the Viet Cong. One of the things that the filmmakers do that looks cool is that the car-jacking gang wears their cotton windbreakers backwards so the hood covers them faces and they have slit eye-holes to see. One of the survivors from the first movie, Joey 6, reappears here but he is played by a different actor.

Okay, take out the Latino gangs from part one and replace them with Black gang bangers. Switch the bad principal and make it a bad teacher instead. Take away the premise of drugs, and make it about guns and carjackings, then instead of the hurt girlfriend who creates and easy entrance for THE SUBSTITUTE, replace her with a dead brother of a former (you guessed it) mercenary (played by Treat Williams) and basically, you've got your SUBSTITUTE 2 - School's Out. It was a good time-passer but nothing as riveting as the first part which starred Tom Berenger as the mercenary-turn-substitute teacher. Telly alums Michael Michele and B.D. Wong co-star.