why is it so bad?
Is it bad? That’s a shame. I really loved the first one and wanted to see the second, but it wasn’t playing anywhere near me (seriously, it’ll play in Bakersfield but not where I’m at? Shenanigans!).
I was thinking of starting a thread when the movie came out. Did you see it? I didn’t think it was bad exactly, just not as good as the first. It was almost a wannabe carbon copy of the first but it had it’s own good moments (although their new sidekick was extremely annoying.) My entire feeling ranged between “Ha!” and “Ho-hum” from the beginning up until the last five minutes. The last five minutes gave a nice surprise that made me smile. I think the movie is about ten years overdue and it’s a little sad to see how old they’ve gotten. The brothers used to be such good eye candy. 
The movie has finally leaked to the internet. It was the number one fake movie of all time on all the usual sites up until about 2 days ago, which by pure coincidence is also when the OP posted. I’m sure he saw it in theaters like all of us law-abiding citizens here who would never dream of downloading a film that is meant to be seen in theatrical glory. Nonetheless, the movie is out there now, a month before the DVD comes out. Or so I’ve heard.
I’d sum this movie up as “meh”. There were only two scenes that blew me away and that was the dream with Rocco and the surprise ending. The dream sequence is really the emotional heart of the movie and adds great poignancy to the character death that preceded it. The twist ending was a complete shock to me because it’s something I would have expected to be spoiled on and I somehow managed to not be spoiled on it.
In ways it was a carbon copy of the first but there are lots of important differences too:
There was way less humor in All Saints Day.
There was no scene anything like the toilet toss. The toilet toss was awesome for two reasons- first it showed that the brothers would do anything to protect each other. Second, a badass Russian gangster gets taken out by a toilet bowl to the head.
The villains of All Saints Day sucked. In the original, we kind of liked Papa Joe because he really had charisma. But his son in All Saints Day? Boring, stereotypical Italian mobster that you could find in any half-baked mob film. He didn’t stand out at all and his death was meaningless compared to his dad’s. And in the original you have Ron Jeremy as Yakavetta’s right hand. Sleazy, greasy and racist, you can’t help but hate him from the moment you see him (while simultaneously laughing at the fact that he’s played by Ron Jeremy!). As for the mafia mooks in All Saints Day, they were just stock characters from central casting too. In the original there were the guys in the diner who knew Rocco and laughed in his face about Yakavetta’s attempt at bumping him off. They weren’t deep characters per se but at least they had some character to them. Even Yakavetta’s collection of heavies at the end of the original had some character- one was horny, one was cruel, one was cautious, et cetera. In All Saints Day they are entirely interchangeable mafioso mooks with guns who exist for the sole purpose of being gunned down in stylistic splashes of gunfire.
Also, the five-foot-five hired gun in All Saints Day doesn’t come anywhere close to being as menacing or as cool as Sick Fuck from the original.
Clifton Collins Jr. will always be awesome to me (particularly for his voice work on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) but his character in All Saints Day was definitely not a suitable replacement for Rocco. And he’s just kind of there. He just shows up and teams up with the brothers after talking to them all of once. With Rocco you knew there was an actual history between him and the brothers and you could buy into it. Not so with Clifton’s character whose name I can’t even remember.
The brothers were assholes in All Saints Day. They were just cruel for the sake of being cruel. I didn’t find them to be sympathetic at all. In the original movie they had a good reason for doing what they did and while they were still assholes at heart (just ask Rosengurtle Baumgartner, Ms “Untouched By Man” until Murphy kicked her ass) they were also nice guys.
The first movie also had a much better blending of the crimes and investigations. As the stories begin to blend it can be viewed as Smecker becoming unhinged by his involvement in the whole thing. Bloom dreams of being a cowgirl but despite her beautiful outfit did not sell me on the idea. Plus her accent was horribly distracting, especially after seeing her in so many years of Buffy and Angel.
Eunice kind of sucks too. Smecker worked hard at solving the case in the first movie and you can see the toll it takes on him. Bloom just shows up everywhere she is needed, figures things out by instinct and spends a lot of time teasing everyone around her. With Smecker, you know he’s hardcore when he becomes exasperated trying to explain things to the detectives and he runs his blood-covered hands through his hair. With Bloom, are we supposed to think she’s hardcore because she wears heels and seamed stockings to a crime scene? And as sexy as she was supposed to be, she spends most of the film in big overcoats!
Another thing that was missing was the theme. In the first movie, the whole idea of vigilante justice comes up time and time again, from the church scene at the beginning to the trial at the end. A religious significance is attached and works well. In All Saints Day the boys get called Jesus-freaks, bible-thumpers, et cetera but their faith and their mission from God is just taken for granted. Do they come back to the States because they don’t approve of people killing priests or because they’re worried they will be blamed for the murder?