I grew up watching the first film for YEARS and I was actually eager to see this since I enjoy almost every film about firefighting, especially the original "Backdraft". I'm lucky that I saw this film for free in order to not get disappointed wasting my good money on this. When I first saw the trailer on YouTube, I had a feeling of excitement and doubt. I was excited that there was going to be a follow-up to my favorite R-rated film of 1991. My feeling of doubt was that I had a bad feeling that the story would be awful. The original film is special to me not just because it's a firefighter film with a spectacular cast and awesome special effects, it's due to the fact that it came out the year I was born. William Baldwin isn't to blame for this film, it's not the fault of Donald Sutherland and not even Joe Anderson. It's the writing that made this film so awful.
The positives: The performances by most of the cast were decent (especially William Baldwin playing Brian McCaffrey again), the fire trucks were nice, the action was pretty good, some of the effects were nice (especially since real fire was used), some of the new characters were likable, particularly Sean and Maggie, the technical adviser who worked on the original film worked on this film as well, Engine 17 and Truck 46 make a grand return (I didn't mind the new versions of them) and Brian is now a fully experienced firefighter.
The NEGATIVES: The story is extremely weak, unnecessary, confusing and is too slow paced, too many new characters that are difficult to remember (but not Maggie, she was an awesome female character), the whole idea with nuclear missles was nonsensical, the new villains have nonsensical motivations, it was 28 years too late for a follow-up to the first film, too many plot holes, pointless mentioning of the "career dissipation light" comment that was used in the original film, the way the film was shot was poor, pointless revelation that Ronald (Donald Sutherland's character) is a diabetic, and arguably the worst part of this film is that Brian gets killed (luckily it was off-screen) at the end which really irritated me since he was one of the characters that I cared for the most.
My recommendations: if you want to see better post - "Backdraft" films watch "Frequency", "Ladder 49" or "World Trade Center" and in terms of pre-"Backdraft" films, watch "Firehouse" with Richard Roundtree or "The Towering Inferno". If you want to watch something that has nods to "Backdraft", watch "Chicago Fire", especially since the technical adviser who worked on both "Backdraft" films works on the show and several supporting cast members from the original film appear as different characters on the show.
Last of all, I'm keeping my promise to avoid watching this piece of smoldering junk for free again. I won't purchase it on DVD or Blu-Ray and I also deem this as my number one worst film of 2019 or my worst film of 2019 (as of right now). Also, please do yourself a favor and don't watch this, not even for free! 'Nuff said!
The positives: The performances by most of the cast were decent (especially William Baldwin playing Brian McCaffrey again), the fire trucks were nice, the action was pretty good, some of the effects were nice (especially since real fire was used), some of the new characters were likable, particularly Sean and Maggie, the technical adviser who worked on the original film worked on this film as well, Engine 17 and Truck 46 make a grand return (I didn't mind the new versions of them) and Brian is now a fully experienced firefighter.
The NEGATIVES: The story is extremely weak, unnecessary, confusing and is too slow paced, too many new characters that are difficult to remember (but not Maggie, she was an awesome female character), the whole idea with nuclear missles was nonsensical, the new villains have nonsensical motivations, it was 28 years too late for a follow-up to the first film, too many plot holes, pointless mentioning of the "career dissipation light" comment that was used in the original film, the way the film was shot was poor, pointless revelation that Ronald (Donald Sutherland's character) is a diabetic, and arguably the worst part of this film is that Brian gets killed (luckily it was off-screen) at the end which really irritated me since he was one of the characters that I cared for the most.
My recommendations: if you want to see better post - "Backdraft" films watch "Frequency", "Ladder 49" or "World Trade Center" and in terms of pre-"Backdraft" films, watch "Firehouse" with Richard Roundtree or "The Towering Inferno". If you want to watch something that has nods to "Backdraft", watch "Chicago Fire", especially since the technical adviser who worked on both "Backdraft" films works on the show and several supporting cast members from the original film appear as different characters on the show.
Last of all, I'm keeping my promise to avoid watching this piece of smoldering junk for free again. I won't purchase it on DVD or Blu-Ray and I also deem this as my number one worst film of 2019 or my worst film of 2019 (as of right now). Also, please do yourself a favor and don't watch this, not even for free! 'Nuff said!