Boredom's Bitter Fruit
Last night I had some time on my hands, so I decided to watch a movie. I perused Hulu's offerings and discovered, with some trepidation, Blues Brothers 2000. Before now, I've avoided that movie, mostly because I had heard from several sources that it might ruin the original. But I was in a movie mood, and I'd enjoyed the YouTube clip of "Ghost Riders in the Sky", so I thought I'd give it a chance.
Mistake? Maybe, but not a terrible one. Contrary to rumor, Blues Brother 2000 doesn't ruin the original. Instead, it makes me want to go back and watch the original Blues Brothers, just to see a movie done well.
The original Blues Brothers was really about the music, and the same is true of the sequel. But where the 1980 movie seamlessly worked performances from music legends into an entertaining plot, 2000 just set them up with one or two lines of dialogue, then got on with it. Aretha Franklin begins her argument with Matt "Guitar" Murphy with two sentences about respect, and then goes into the song. He hadn't even been arguing. Compare that to "Think" in the original movie, where a heated argument shifts perfectly into Franklin's powerful singing. None of that in Blues Brothers 2000; when a song is coming, the story leaps out of the way.
Well, what story there is, anyway. In the first movie, Jake and Elwood had a pressing reason to reunite the band, since the only home they'd ever had was going to be closed by the state in a certain number of days. That driving, holy mission gave energy and urgency to the plot. So what of the sequel? Elwood gets out of jail, and wants to "get the band back together". That's it. He's doing it because he's a washed-up felon with no other prospects. There's no real point to it. And when things start rolling along regardless, it's all an excuse to rehash the same 18-year old gags. Roger Ebert had the most appropriate remark on the movie's plot: "'I always thought there was another story to be told,' Landis says in the film's notes. Fine; then tell one."
Even so, I couldn't hate the movie (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's ever talked to me about movies). The music was excellent, even if the transitions that led into it were clunky. And at one point, they even managed to add something new to an old joke. When Russian mobsters flip their car while chasing Elwood, one of them moans (in Russian) "They broke my watch." It might have ended there, with another gratuitous reference to the original. But the remark prompts half a dozen hardened killers to look over, and simultaneously raise their own watches to their ears. It's a goofy image, and maybe a lame joke, but at least it was something new.
Overall, it felt like a fan movie, like a couple of Blues Brothers nuts had rounded up as many of their friends as they could, and tried to put together a continuation of the story. When those fans happen to be John Landis and Dan Aykroyd, you end up with most of the original cast. Just as The Blues Brothers was intended to spark new interest in musicians who had fallen on hard times, Blues Brothers 2000 works best if you think of it as a reminder of how good the original was. Also, John Goodman sings pretty well. In all, the soundtrack probably has way more value than the movie as a whole.
-Sam
Mistake? Maybe, but not a terrible one. Contrary to rumor, Blues Brother 2000 doesn't ruin the original. Instead, it makes me want to go back and watch the original Blues Brothers, just to see a movie done well.
The original Blues Brothers was really about the music, and the same is true of the sequel. But where the 1980 movie seamlessly worked performances from music legends into an entertaining plot, 2000 just set them up with one or two lines of dialogue, then got on with it. Aretha Franklin begins her argument with Matt "Guitar" Murphy with two sentences about respect, and then goes into the song. He hadn't even been arguing. Compare that to "Think" in the original movie, where a heated argument shifts perfectly into Franklin's powerful singing. None of that in Blues Brothers 2000; when a song is coming, the story leaps out of the way.
Well, what story there is, anyway. In the first movie, Jake and Elwood had a pressing reason to reunite the band, since the only home they'd ever had was going to be closed by the state in a certain number of days. That driving, holy mission gave energy and urgency to the plot. So what of the sequel? Elwood gets out of jail, and wants to "get the band back together". That's it. He's doing it because he's a washed-up felon with no other prospects. There's no real point to it. And when things start rolling along regardless, it's all an excuse to rehash the same 18-year old gags. Roger Ebert had the most appropriate remark on the movie's plot: "'I always thought there was another story to be told,' Landis says in the film's notes. Fine; then tell one."
Even so, I couldn't hate the movie (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's ever talked to me about movies). The music was excellent, even if the transitions that led into it were clunky. And at one point, they even managed to add something new to an old joke. When Russian mobsters flip their car while chasing Elwood, one of them moans (in Russian) "They broke my watch." It might have ended there, with another gratuitous reference to the original. But the remark prompts half a dozen hardened killers to look over, and simultaneously raise their own watches to their ears. It's a goofy image, and maybe a lame joke, but at least it was something new.
Overall, it felt like a fan movie, like a couple of Blues Brothers nuts had rounded up as many of their friends as they could, and tried to put together a continuation of the story. When those fans happen to be John Landis and Dan Aykroyd, you end up with most of the original cast. Just as The Blues Brothers was intended to spark new interest in musicians who had fallen on hard times, Blues Brothers 2000 works best if you think of it as a reminder of how good the original was. Also, John Goodman sings pretty well. In all, the soundtrack probably has way more value than the movie as a whole.
-Sam