WAYNE'S WORLD 2
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tia Carrere, Christopher Walken. Screenplay: Mike Myers, Bonnie Turner & Terry Turner. Director: Stephen Surjik.
"Wayne's World" was already a minor miracle by the standards of "Saturday Night Live" sketches before it ever made it to the big screen. Where most SNL premises exhaust all charm in roughly a minute, Wayne and Garth provided consistent laughs. Then they tempted fate by turning a five-minute sketch into a full length film, and it became a huge, goofy hit. So the question became, would the inevitable sequel finally show a concept running on fumes? Happily, the answer is no. WAYNE'S WORLD 2 is a collection of more good-natured pokes at popular culture, propelled by the infectious exuberance of Mike Myers as our hero.
WAYNE'S WORLD 2 again follows the adventures of Aurora, Illinois' favorite public access television stars, Wayne Campbell (Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey). The boys have finally moved out of their parents' homes, but all is not well. Wayne, fearing the advances of shady agent Bobby Cahn (Christopher Walken) on his girlfriend Cassandra (Tia Carrere), looks for a greater purpose to his life. He finds it in a vision which leads him to organize a music festival called Waynestock, lacking only any actual bands. Garth, meanwhile, faces the advances of the seductive Honey Hornee (Kim Basinger).
Of course, plot ultimately means very little. WAYNE'S WORLD, in both its television and film incarnations, is about a generation whose collective consciousness is a swirl of pop culture icons. The gags play on both genre conventions and particular images, but somehow they manage to be sharper and more "in" than the slew of genre parodies which littered theaters this year. The best known targets in WAYNE'S WORLD 2 (kung fu films, THE GRADUATE, THE DOORS) get the most extensive treatments, but Myers isn't afraid to pull out obscure references to Mahogany Rush or 70's detergent and shampoo commercials. Wayne and Garth, for all the inevitable comparisons, are no Beavis and Butthead; they're clever and sharp- witted, simply with all their literacy derived from the media. They're in on the joke with their audience, and they're willing to assume that audience can keep up with them.
Social commentary aside, WAYNE'S WORLD 2 is just plain laugh- out-loud funny. Even the most obvious gags, like the performance of Village People's "Y.M.C.A." which is destined to become this film's "Bohemian Rhapsody," are handled with real zest. The kung fu sequence, a showdown between Cassandra's father (played by veteran actor James Hong) and Wayne, is a hysterical parody of the exaggerated sound effects in "chop-socky" films, and the sequence from THE GRADUATE features such minor but funky flourishes as using The Lemonheads' recent cover of "Mrs. Robinson." Through it all struts Mike Myers, sporting Wayne's trademark wiseguy grin. The sense of fun he pumps into Wayne is almost always engaging, and most importantly he never seems to be trying to put anything over on his audience. As a performer, his enthusiasm can make up for numerous rough edges.
And there are rough edges in WAYNE'S WORLD 2. Christopher Walken's character is basically a retread of Rob Lowe's from the first film, but without the campy appeal. The Dana Carvey/ Kim Basinger segments never really worked for me, primarily because I generally find Carvey annoying. Overall, the direction isn't as creative as Penelope Spheeris' work in the first, but Spheeris turned out THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, so maybe that makes it even. Like many recent sequels, WAYNE'S WORLD 2 includes copycat elements from its predecessor, but far fewer than most, and there's plenty of fresh fun to be found.
Party on and on and on, guys.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 hurls: 7.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews