History of the World Part II

History of the World Part I was comedy genius. Mel Brooks was in his prime, putting out hit after hit.

Part II is nowhere near that. This honestly doesn't even feel like Mel Brooks is involved outside of narrating. Like some others have said, HOTW Pt II is basically a combination of the shows Drunk History, SNL and Mad TV. It would have been better if they'd done one episode per scenario, like one episode for U. S. Grant, one episode for Judas, etc. But mashing up multiple short clips into a 30 minute episode doesn't work here.

I know this type of comedy isn't for everyone. But it feels way too forced. Some of the actors are way past their prime and should have called it quits years ago.

Overall, this just isn't it. And it's a shame because people waited 40+ years for a sequel that sucks.

It's not all bad. I watched it all and thought it would be as funny as the first one. It was not. There are some funny scenes to make you laugh a little but it's not often. It's worth a watch if you are a fan of Mel Brooke's but I can't believe he wrote any of this. The easily offended are ruining everything and now what could have been an amazing series has been toned down to, well what it is. I am really hoping Hollywood begins to go back to cater for the masses and not the small community which is woke and easily offended. It's a comedy and comedy is suppose to offend and make people laugh. Jokes don't represent beliefs they are joke.

Listen, I love Mel Brooks. Love his humor, his zingers and bluntness. But this was not funny and I don't blame Mr. Brooks for that at all. If you're a fan of Ike Barinholtz, Nick Kroll and Wanda Sykes then this show is for you because they are the main characters and in every episode (Sykes being in only 7 of the 8 episodes). They also direct and write episodes. If you're looking for laughs, this isn't the show for you. I'm seriously hoping they don't make a season 2 because it was so boring and there was too much of Krull and Barinholtz that just killed it for me. Some of the bits went on too long and you just lose interest. Took me way too long to finish the last 2 episodes because I just didn't want to do it.

It just feels like "this is supposed to be funny, right?" Where as with the first one the audience sees history through Mel Brooks eyes, this one just feels like Drunk History sketches without the drunk person. It doesn't feel like the piss is being taken, it's just feels cheap. There's no voice that ties it all together, it's all really funny people whose ideas don't mesh well. All these performers are charismatic and so its watchable, like background while your cleaning kinda watchable, but the jokes themselves aren't clever enough for the performers delivering them.

It all feels like sketch that might work live, but definitely doesn't work filmed.

Ultimately, it suffers from everyone behaving like it's a comedy. What worked so well about the first movie is that all of MB's characters behaved as though they were the hero's of their narrative, but this one is just clowning, and at least for me, that really doesn't translate to film.

JB Smoove as JB Smoove is so far the best part.

Being a life long MB fan, this has glimpses of the old days, but current societal trends steer this series into a dull, unfunny direction. Reminds me of post 2000's SNL. Tries to be funny, is trying to be trendy, but it does not translate well into Mel Brooks humor. If the effort was to try to "tune up" the traditional Mel Brooks style of writing, Bring it into a new era, It faceplanted. It felt like younger writers were whispering in Mel's ear, "no no... this is funny stuff, it will play!" Mel "Are you sure??? This just doesn't make sense to me... but if you think so..." Don't get me wrong, I see some comic genius for sure. Noah, Alexander Bell, 1 of the Lincoln bits, the underground railroad were quite funny. Unfortunately the rest felt as if they were trying to grow a batch of Mel brooks humor in their cinematic garden and it was choked out by weeds, mired in fields of boring, ugly kudzu.