WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S 2
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This continuation of WEEKEND AT
BERNIE'S has its moments but they are generally too far
between. We have ad nauseum corpse abuse and a little bit of
physical comedy from Terry Kiser as Bernie. "Weekend" is
probably accurate. I expect by the first Monday it will be
out of theaters and headed for cable. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).
For me WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S was precisely the right film at the right time since I usually find it difficult to sleep on an airplane. What I saw- --a total of about ten or fifteen minutes--seemed like mis-fire humor. A lot of it was the same joke--abuse of a dead body--ad nauseum. When I saw that the sequel was being made I said, "They'd have to pay me to go see that." Then a friend who gets paid by the distributor to count audiences asked Evelyn and me to cover for her. That fulfilled the condition. This time I stayed awake, and while I cannot say I thought it was a genuinely good film, it would be about average for cable fare (which is pretty much my definition of a zero rating--+1 is average for a theatrical release).
Robert Klane once again wrote and directed. Terry Kiser again played the corpse. I suspect in the first film Kiser had little opportunity to do much in the line of physical comedy. This time around, however, Bernie has been subjected to a voodoo ceremony that went wrong and he gets to return as a zombie whenever music with a strong beat is playing. His almost animated body is probably the best thing about this film. Certainly inferior is the acting of Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman as the two cretins who are stuffing the body into suitcases, dragging it down stairs, banging its head around, and in general having the scene stolen from them by a mostly inanimate object. It seems they have grabbed the corpse and are trying to use it to get their paws on Bernie's ill-gotten gains. All the while they are chased by company detective Hummel (played by Barry Bostwick).
What can I say that is good about this film? A few of the gags work, though many of the jokes that were not funny in the first film are trying again and failing again in the second. The opening credit sequence managed to tell enough of the plot of the first film so that I did not feel lost in the sequel. Moving the story to the Virgin Islands ties in with the voodoo plot and adds some nice scenery. This film is a time-waster but it managed to keep me out of trouble for an hour and a half (and awake this time). I would rate it a 0, as I said before, on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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