Cast: Andy San Dimas, Jiz Lee, Dana Dearmond, Diamond Foxxx, Brooklyn Lee, Kimberly Kane, Missy Martinez, Tuesday Cross, Zoey Holoway (non-sex role), Karen Anzoategui (non-sex role), Vicki Chase, Evelin Rain,Nina Mercedez (non-sex role), Judy Thompson (non-sex role), Riley Steele (non-sex role)
Director: Kay Brandt

It’s no secret that most of the “lesbian” porn produced by the big porn companies isn’t aimed at lesbian audiences; it’s designed to appeal mostly to straight men. It tends to be formulaic and unrealistic. Even though I’m part of the target demographic for these movies, I tend to find them unsatisfying.

On the other hand, there are also the true lesbian films, mostly made around San Francisco (rather than Los Angeles, where most other US porn is made) which has much more realistic depictions of lesbian sex, but is made on a smaller budget, with lesser quality audio/video/editing, and with much narrower distribution. I don’t find these titles satisfying either, but for different reasons.

Now Digital Playground is trying to bring aspects of both types together with a new line of films made by their JewelBox Films division. This movie, Cherry 2, is only their second release, but I’d say they’re off to a pretty good start. They’ve brought in queer porn star Jiz Lee to help spice up the action in this movie, and it really helps. She takes command of the first scene, in which she is paired with Andy San Dimas. This scene is very reminiscent of queer porn and not at all like the typical “girl-girl” scenes from the big studios.

Unfortunately, the movie stumbles a bit with the next few scenes. Dana DeArmond and Evelin Rain are cute enough in the second scene, but the scene feels very slow after the explosive first scene, making me feel like hitting the fast-forward button. It’s actually not a bad scene, and might be appropriate in another situation, but when coming off the high of the frenetic first scene, this is just too slow.

The brief third scene shows some promise, as Vicki Chase prepares Missy Martinez and Brooklyn Lee for the night’s activities, but it soon interrupted before it goes anywhere. The two see some action soon enough, when Brooklyn Lee is paired with Zoey Holloway for a relatively straightforward scene. Brooklyn Lee is matched up with Diamond Foxxx, but the two of them don’t get to do much besides watch Missy and Zoey until the fifth scene, when Missy Martinez is suddenly snatched away and the attention turns to Brooklyn Lee and Diamond Foxxx for another uninspiring scene.

Aside from the first scene, the only scene which I really loved was the sixth scene, featuring Kimberly Kane and Tuesday Cross. In terms of how exciting it is, I’d consider this to be midway between the standard fare found in the middle scenes and the exciting first scene. But while I may not have found it quite as exciting as the first scene, I was more turned on by this scene as I found the performers more attractive and thought they had great chemistry together. Whereas the first scene felt like the kind of energetic sex two people might have in a one-time encounter, this last scene is the kind of sex you’d expect from a couple who love each other. It was passionate and considerate, which can be just as satisfying, if not more so, as the frenetic, wild sex found in the first scene.

I felt lost when it came to the plot, but then again I never watched the first episode of Cherry so that’s probably to be expected. The plot doesn’t feel very important, and the scenes were certainly enjoyable enough on their own. The “behind the scenes” bonus is very comprehensive, at nearly 45 minutes long, and includes some explanation of the plot for those of us who haven’t seen the first movie, as well as all the other things found in this sort of feature. I didn’t watch all of it, but I thought it was very informative and pretty well put together. There were no other bonuses on the disc, aside from the usual trailers and stills.

The package contains two discs: a DVD and a Blu-ray disc. The contents of both discs is the same, except that the Blu-ray is 1080p HD. I watched the whole movie on DVD, and watched a few scenes in HD on the Blu-ray. I would recommend watching it in HD if possible, but the quality of the DVD is very good and aside from the obviously lower (480p) resolution it looks very similar to the Blu-ray version.

I found the camera work to be excellent throughout the movie, with great editing, too. Also, I found the audio editing to be good, with music at appropriate levels so you could hear and understand what people were saying. There was little music in the sex scenes, which makes me happy as I prefer to be able to hear what the performers are doing. In some of the scenes you can hear the club’s music in the background, but it’s always much quieter than in the plot segments.