*. Not all bad. A step down from Leprechaun, to be sure, but not a complete piece of crap. There are actually a few interesting ideas here.
*. They wanted Jennifer Aniston back, and offered her the princely sum of $25,000, but she was already working on Friends so that ship had sailed. I guess Ken Olandt was busy too, so instead we have Shevonne Durkin as Bridget and Charlie Heath as Cody. They’re not A-listers, which means they fit in pretty well here.
*. Warwick Davis did come back, but is he the same leprechaun as in the original movie? He’d said there that he was 600 years old, but here he’s celebrating a wedding that apparently occurs only once every thousand years. So while he’s a leprechaun he may not be the leprechaun. If that even matters.
*. The plot is just a bit of stupidity about the Leprechaun (I’ll capitalize it here, as I don’t think he has a name) marrying a girl if she sneezes three times. I don’t know if that’s real leprechaun lore or if they just made it up. There seems to be a lot of leprechaun lore that’s new here. Instead of his weakness being four-leaf clovers he’s now undone by iron. But like I say, maybe this is a different leprechaun.
*. I mentioned some interesting ideas. Unfortunately they’re left underdeveloped. There’s a good kill when the jerky guy thinks he’s going to kiss Bridget but instead he’s kissing a pair of lawnmowers. Alas, we never actually get to see the big mulch, or even its aftermath. But the concept was neat. There’s also what seems to be a convention of little people in a bar on St. Patrick’s Day that nothing is done with. Again, it’s a good idea but it doesn’t pay off. The only thing it leads to is a shoehorned reference to Freaks.
*. Otherwise this is pretty much a dull second chapter, typical of most cheap horror franchises. It was the last of the series to get a theatrical release but still looks like a straight-to-video title. The Leprechaun’s home, for example, should have been more of a fun house. Instead it’s just a really boring set.
*. Given the Leprechaun’s character as a magical trickster it’s a shame that after two movies he had yet to crack a single good line (or rhyme), and there’d been almost none of the Nightmare on Elm Street-style surrealism you’d expect. A tiny hand coming out of a phone is the only example here, and that’s just stealing straight from Freddy.
*. So, as with the first film, not as bad as it might have been but still failing to live up to the character’s potential. As the luck of the Irish would have it though, he’d be given many more kicks at the can.