Femme 2 Review

Reviewed by Saki  on  1/30/2000

Femme II (1998)
Studio: Vivid Raw
Directed by: Dyanna Lauren
Starring: Charlie, Raylene, Chloe, Petra, Liza Harper, Flower, Inari Vachs, Katie Gold, India, and Dee
Running Time: 1:43
Format: Double Sided, Single Layer
DVD Features: Animated and full motion video menu, full motion video chapter selection, 20-picture photo gallery, and side B extras (including 27 assorted video clips)

The First Word: This is a surprisingly good lesbian gonzo with an attractive and playful cast. It should appeal to girl-girl fans who dislike the fake lesbian quickies that dominate most adult movies.

Plot Synopsis: Femme II shares the same universal theme as most of Dyanna Lauren's projects as a director: pretty, wet & wild women engaged in hardcore sex. In this case, all of the scenes in this all-girl gonzo video are set in water. The first scene has Raylene, Charlie, and Chloe playing in a hot tub. The second is set outdoors as well in a rustic tub on a ranch property and stars Petra and Charlie. Next, there's a threesome in and out of the pool with Liza Harper, Flower and Inari Vachs. The scene starts out with a lot of frolicking in and out of the water (hey! no running on the pool deck!). The fun continues with Flower and Katie Gold making some naked dives through a slip & slide set on Dyanna's lawn. Finally, the video ends with cuties Petra, India, and Dee washing an SUV while topless. :) Oh, yeah, they all have sex, ranging from the basics (breast play, licking, and lots of fingers) to the advanced (big and unusual dildos and anal probing).

Notable Performances: Let me just start out by saying that four of the girls in this video are on my list of current favorites: Inari, Petra, Dee, and India. And the wet & wild theme is one of my fetishes. So right off the bat, I have a lot of reasons to like this video. And I wasn't disappointed after I watched it--it's got all of the makings of a great girl-girl fantasy: pretty girls, in more or less believable scenarios, having sex and genuinely enjoying it. I particularly liked the pool and car wash scenes because they open with the girls having fun: running around naked, laughing, trying to splash buckets of water on each other, and the like. Seeing videos like this reaffirm my belief that some porn stars genuinely like having sex on camera, rather than just going through the motions in business-like order.

Dislikes: The biggest liability of this video is the way Dyanna chose to tie all of the scenes together. She interviews a few guys about what they like about women in water, then uses those sound bites between scenes. Unfortunately, the comments are pretty lame, and I since I'm watching an all-girl video, the last thing I want to hear is a guy describing his turn-ons--call me crazy... I think the sex scenes are hot enough and the girls are captivating enough that such a distracting plot device is completely unnecessary. The second biggest problem with Femme II is that a couple of the scenes have no production sound, only the musical soundtrack. That means you can't hear the girls doing anything, talking, laughing, or moaning. :) It's kind of like watching a silent movie--I prefer the talkies, if you know what I mean. I'm sure that the reason why the sound isn't there is because there was more background noise (airplanes, leaf blowers, LA traffic) than they could filter out. Still, it's hard to get into to a scene when you can't hear anything but music.

DVD Notes: For a Raw title, the audio and video is well done. The feature was shot on high quality video, so the transfer is crystal clear, perhaps not as good as Dyanna's virtual sex series, but quite good. The sound is excellent, even at high volume, with the only problem being the missing production sound that I talked about just a minute ago. The extra video clips on the flip side are okay but are pretty much mindless filler material. I certainly wouldn't buy this DVD because of the 27 extra video clips, since all Vivid discs have lots of cheap fillers. On the bright side, this disc's side B actually has 7 (more or less) full-length bonus scenes that are, gasp, labeled! It would be really nice if Vivid extended the labeling to all of the clips that appear on their discs. I don't know why they don't--it would be a great marketing tool to say where the clips came from.

The Last Word: For a budget title, I am pleasantly surprised how good this one is. I suppose that Dyanna Lauren directing has something to do with the quality, as does the talent of the low-saline cast (with Raylene being the most obvious exception). At under $15 (street price), this should be a no-brainer for those who prefer quality girl-girl videos over lipstick lesbian showpieces.