Director Jean-Claude Lord
Starring Michael Paré, Marina Orsini, Bernie Coulson
Rated PG
Score 3/6

A Montreal construction worker joins a band and turns out to be a long-lost rock star from 1960s New Jersey – none other than Eddie Wilson, who mysteriously disappeared after a road accident.

The concert scenes for the finale and Eddie’s big return onstage were filmed on April 24, 1989 in Las Vegas Paradise, Nevada at the Thomas & Mack Center in between sets of Bon Jovi’s headlining “New Jersey” tour.

Supposedly at the time of its release of Eddie and the Cruisers 2 the producers the Scotti Brothers where criticized as being more concerned with selling soundtrack albums for the film than promoting the film itself. Now, this is another addition to the list of movies that I would want to watch based purely on the soundtrack. Watching this I got the vibe that this was more of a telemovie then a feature film released in a cinema, perhaps this would have been less noticeable if Martin Davidson was given the opportunity to direct the sequel instead of Jean-Claude Lord or at the very least write it. On a slight side note the transfer from film to DVD left things a little grainy, and has left me wondering if a Blu-ray transfer (if it exists) would have been better to watch. Michael Paré reprises his role as Eddie Wilson, though the mustache he had for most of the movie might have been more at home in a ‘Gentleman’s special interest movie’. I also thought that Anthony Sherwood gave an interesting performance as Hilton Overstreet and I liked the point that his character made about playing music and fingerprints because it ended up reminding me of the authentic swing metaphor from The Legend of Bagger Vance.