Hot Shots! 2

I don't know if I've ever seen a comedy as zany or as randomly silly as "Hot Shots! Part Deux." Then again, I'm not all that familiar with the comedy genre, but I can say that between this movie and its predecessor, every pratfall, every parody, every little joke has been done. Part Deux is even crazier and more random than its nonsensically silly prequel and it's even less intelligent, but strangely enough, it's a lot more enjoyable. I thought the first "Hot Shots!" was a promising hit-and-miss satire; Part Deux succeeds.

Like its predecessor, Part Deux sets its plot as a parody of one specific film, but makes satirical parodies of dozens throughout its running time. The first movie was a parody of "Top Gun" but made references to dozens of other movies from "Dances With Wolves" to "Gone with the Wind." Likewise, the sequel is a parody of "Rambo III", but that's just the setup for all of the jokes that follow. Like Rambo, Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) is retired to the Far East when his former commander (Richard Crenna) comes in and asks him to join a rescue mission to save hostages from Iraqi captors. Sheen at first refuses but when Crenna is captured as he was in "Rambo III", Sheen heads in after him along with a misfit group of soldiers. And meanwhile, Admiral Benson (Lloyd Bridges) from the first movie has been promoted to president of the United States and continues his idiotic and incompetent running of the country.

Now this is precisely the sort of comedy that a movie-lover like myself enjoys. Why? Well, not only because it is so zany and buffoonish that one can't help but laugh at it, but because it's like a big mincemeat of movie references. The setup is a parody of "Rambo III", but I spotted parodies of "Casablanca", "Platoon" (which also starred Charlie Sheen), "Lady and the Tramp", "The Wizard of Oz", "Terminator 2" and so on. And just when I thought they were going to between two movies forget to parody "Star Wars", sure enough I got my fix for that. And that's not even the limit of it. The movie also makes jokes and points fingers at some of your favorite actors. A brief example is an enemy patrol boat that comes into the shot. The boat's name is "The Behn Gazaarah" as a tribute to actor Ben Gazzara. If you've seen lots of movies and you love the movies, this is the comedy for you because you can sit back, relax, have the time of your life laughing, and point your finger at the screen whenever a parody comes up and say "Yeah, that was from (insert movie title)!" "Hot Shots! Part Deux" opens up with a joke and closes with a joke and at least ninety percent of these are gut-busting in their effect. There are some jokes throughout the film, such as a few of the Saddam Hussein jokes toward the beginning, that were not all that funny, but around and after that were some of the zaniest, silliest, most random pratfalls I've ever seen. But it's also funny because it doesn't just make a simple parody and joke, but keeps pushing it one step ahead. Instead of just simply parodying the spaghetti-kiss scene from "Lady and the Tramp", it carries it to the next step with Charlie Sheen pushing a meatball across the plate with his nose and then the scene morphs in a parody of "Casablanca." It's also not just enough for the movie to create a character like Richard Crenna's character in the Rambo series to be Sheen's former commanding officer. But to have Richard Crenna himself play the character and wear the same outfit and the same makeup and speak in the same rhythm and manner.

And if there is one other element in this movie that I loved, it was the Lloyd Bridges character. Like the admiral he played in the first "Hot Shots!" Bridges plays the president of the United States, Thomas "Tug" Benson as simply a complete idiot, somebody so stupid that they could never, in real life, get a job running a grocery store let alone a country. And Bridges looks like he's having a good time playing the character, which in turn makes it very funny for the audience.

In closing, "Hot Shots! Part Deux" is a tremendously enjoyable satirical comedy and precisely the sort of parody that I find entertaining. The key to its success is that it's so unbelievably random and silly and nonsensical. Whereas so many comedies I know try to do the same thing but just fail, it passes with flying colors. This is one funny movie.

While the original will always be considered better, this film still held true to the Hot Shots mentality. While the whole concept may have been a little dragged out, at least they didn't try to make another movie to further destroy this franchise. Charlie Sheen was once again, Charlie Sheen. With yet another tongue-in-cheek performance, Sheen proves to us he is one of the most nonchalant comedy actor of our day. Plenty of funny things to talk about, but far too many to mention.

It's surprising how much fresher this movie looks and plays compared to most other spoofs of the 90's. It's a reminder (which you may need after watching films like "Dracula:Dead and Loving It") that ANY genre can work with the right amount of effort put into it. Maybe it does have a few duds here and there, but there are far more surrealistic gems along the way ("Geronimoooo!". "Geronimoooo!". "Meeeee!"). One of the best of its kind. (***)

The original HOT SHOTS was a fabulous film and was more polished and fresh than this remake. However, this is not to say this sequel is bad--it still maintains an excellent pace and will make you laugh. That's because even more than the original, the jokes come so rapid fire that if one falls flat (as many do), there is no doubt a good laugh coming only moments later.

In HOT SHOTS, the film is basically a take off on TOP GUN--with many other movie references thrown in as well. Here in PART DEUX, the story is essentially RAMBO II along with many other movie references as well. Some of the parodied films include LADY AND THE TRAMP, CASABLANCA and NO WAY OUT.

The major difference in this film is the inclusion of a new major character, Saddam Hussein! He is ridiculed repeatedly and comes off as an effeminate oaf. Late in the film, the action really heats up when the President (played wonderfully once again by Lloyd Bridges) has a final showdown with Hussein...and the film degenerates into the weirdest takeoff on TERMINATOR II that you can imagine! Overall, the plot is mostly stupid and irrelevant--which is exactly what you'd expect from such a film! This is because the plot is only an excuse for stringing together many jokes and while some of the great intellectuals out there may hate this sort of film, you can't deny that it makes you laugh...unless you LIKE Saddam Hussein! The film misses about as often as it hits, but still with so many jokes this is still a crowd pleaser. Not as good as HOT HOTS or the AIRPLANE movies, it is still well worth seeing. And, unlike many films, gets better with repeated viewing.

"Hot Shots! Part Deux" beats the odds to be pretty good, not just as spoofs go, but as spoof *sequels* go. Granted, it's not always very funny, but enough of the verbal and visual jokes work to make this solidly entertaining comedy fare, and a worthy sequel to the hilarious first movie. It goes about making fun of the corpse littered action escapism films of the 1980s, which of course were a genre just ripe for parody. Charlie Sheen returns as hero Topper Harley, now living in Thailand after getting his heart broken by Ramada (Valeria Golino). He's approached by the CIA to undertake a top secret mission in the Middle East where he must rescue the rescue team who went in to save the rescue team who tried to retrieve some hostages.

Also returning from the first film are Lloyd Bridges, who once again is an absolute riot; somehow, his idiotic character Thomas "Tug" Benson has become the President of the United States. Jerry Haleva makes an encore appearance as Saddam Hussein, and gets more to do this time, including a climactic duel with Benson. New characters include those played by lovely Brenda Bakke, Richard Crenna (who gets to poke fun at his own "Rambo" series role), Miguel Ferrer, Rowan Atkinson, Mitch Ryan, Ryan Stiles, Gregory Sierra, Andreas Katsulas, and Clyde Kusatsu. So there's a lot of familiar faces here, including some other famous faces in gag cameos. (The best one is by Sheen's dad Martin.) One of the brightest jokes is the "bloodiest movie ever" one; among the movies and shows parodied are "Basic Instinct", "No Way Out", "Lady and the Tramp", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", and Bridges' own series 'Sea Hunt', but mostly co-writer and director Jim Abrahams, an old hand at this sort of thing, keeps his focus on skewering the mindless macho action flick.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable comedy, no matter if some of the humour is dated (such as referring to then first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton). It manages to hold up pretty well on repeat viewings.

And war is indeed fantastic.

Eight out of 10.