
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 9, 1994                    TAG: 9406090054 
SECTION: DAILY BREAK                     PAGE: B3    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 
DATELINE: 940609                                 LENGTH: Medium

BY ALL COUNTS, HAPLESS FLICK ``LEPRECHAUN 2'' FALLS WAY SHORT

{LEAD} HAVING SURVIVED ``Leprechaun,'' the potato famine and a few dozen wars, it is hopeful that Ireland will also survive ``Leprechaun 2,'' a hapless effort to, once again, turn the image of the little people into one of violence-obsessed harridans.

Once again, a midget, dwarf or some other type of little person is done up in ugly-time makeup, green hat and buckled shoes as he goes about pulling off people's fingers or, more mercifully, instantly zapping them.

{REST} A prologue begins a thousand years ago when our leprechaun decides he wants to get married. Understandably, his date list is not crowded. He announces that the first lass who sneezes three times will be his.

Flash one thousand years later and the object of his desire is a teen miss, whose biggest problem seems to be who she'll date to the go-go cart track.

When her boyfriend gets one of the miser's gold pieces, it prompts leppy to go about whining his most famous line from the first film: ``I want me gold.''

``Leprachaun 2'' is one of those movies they should let you in for free - and then charge you to get out. It would make a fortune.

It tries, persistently, for one-liners. For example, the meanie little one comments ``It's finger lickin' good'' after he tears off the chosen limb. It goes more obviously for laughs than for scares. The level of gore is not what it might have been, but, still, it's enough.

Warwick Davis is again cast as the little one - with a whiny voice only his mom could have loved.

The proposed bride is a good deal more pleasing to the eye than was Elsa Lanchester as the ``Bride of Frankenstein,'' but she is content merely to scream once in a while.

``Leprechaun 2'' is sure to go directly to video. On all counts, it comes up short.

by CNB