Wayne's World 2 (1993)
The Cast
Mike Myers ... Wayne Campbell
Dana Carvey ... Garth Algar
Christopher Walken ... Bobby Cahn
Tia Carrere ... Cassandra Wong
Chris Farley ... Milton
Ralph Brown ... Del Preston
James Hong ... Jeff Wong
Heather Locklear ... Herself
Bob Odenkirk ... Concert Nerd
Robert Smigel ... Concert Nerd
Kevin Pollak ... Jerry Segel
Olivia d'Abo ... Betty Jo
Kim Basinger ... Honey Horneé
Drew Barrymore ... Bjergen Kjergen
Harry Shearer ... Handsome Dan
Ted McGinley ... Mr. Scream
Tim Meadows ... Sammy Davis, Jr.
Charlton Heston ... Good Actor
Ed O'Neill ... Glen, Mikita's Manager
For as long as movies have been made, sequels to financially successful movies have followed, asked for or not. For example, there was no need for Weekend at Bernie's II (not to mention the Roman numerals used in the title) to ever have been thought of, let alone commited to celluloid. There's a lot of sequels like that out there, either attempting to capitalize on a previously successful formula (the Home Alone series) or a twenty five years too late attempt to cash in on name value (Slap Shot 2). They don't further the story, they don't allow the characters to grow. In fact, some of them have a barely discernible connection with the original movie. I'm still trying to figure out where Wayne's World 2 fits.
It's a year after the original Wayne's World and Wayne Campbell (Myers) has regained the ownership of his cable access show that he hosts weekly with his best friend Garth (Carvey). Wayne's grown up a bit in that time period, moving out and living in a loft with Garth but still dating the lovely Cassandra (Carrere), who is way out of Wayne's league. Bobby Cahn (Walken), the producer of Cassandra's album, realises this fact and sets into motion a plan to take Cassandra away from Wayne, who is somewhat distracted from this obvious plan by his obsession with putting on Waynestock, a huge concert to be held in Aurora, Illinois.
Everything about WW2 is an attempt to be bigger and better and funnier than the first WW. There's a plethora of name value hot actresses shoehorned into the movie, adding nothing to the story and seemingly serving only to placate the growing ego of Mike Myers. Pretty much what the third Austin Powers movie turned into, if you'd like to use a somewhat recent example. The humour of Mike Myers reminds me a lot of Robin Williams. If there's an experienced director at the helm, the performances are usually reined in quite a bit and the quality of the movie rises. Stephen Surjik is not that director.
Much of the humour in the movie is as subtle and telegraphed as a bulldozer slowly driving over a fat man. While that event right there is something many of us have never seen before, 90% of the "jokes" in WW2 seem to consist of unused dialogue from Saturday Night Live or the first Wayne's World movie. The large variety of talented guest stars is wasted on this boring and tedious ego trip. Although, Ed O'Neill again steals the movie with his one line and that's almost enough to save it from being horrid. The inclusion of Walken is alright, but alas, he's not used to his full potential.
Having said all that, I'm still not entirely sure what sequel category WW2 fits into best. Of course, I purposely didn't mention the ultimately underwhelming and lacklustre genre of sequels, because most assuredly, that is where Wayne's World 2 fits best. Perhaps Myers should have taken some time off between the two movies, rather than just being satisfied with making a bloated version of the original movie a year later.
1.5 / 5