Hot Shots! 2

One of the best parody films of the 80-90s. Absolute Kino from the beginning till the end.

What can I say about this movie? A comic moment at every turn, hilarious lines and a great spoof to live by. I, being a Ryan Stiles fan, couldn't stop laughing when I first saw this. His performance was top, and Charlie Sheen just brought it all together. My favourite moments included when Dexter (Rowan Atkinson) mentioned his shoelaces being tied together, and when the army wrote the sounds of the morse code (Dah di di dah dah di dah)! Couldn't stop laughing!!! The casting is great, with Lloyd Bridges as the President and Ryan Stiles as Rainbowitz, this is a great movie spoof! I recommend this movie for slapstick fans and people who just want a laugh, a lot of laughs!!

"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.

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. (***)

OK, let's get this clear; Hot shots IS silly. Silly, simple, stupid and ABSOLUTELY pointless. But hey, it IS a slapstick comedy, and a ******* GREAT ONE! MUCH better than the first movie! In EVERY SECOND of the movie there is a gag, a joke, or someone or something that is so damn funny that I can't help myself from falling of the chair laughing like hell! I think I've seen this movie over 20 times, It's still the funniest movie ever for me. I guess when it comes to movies of this kind, I just want them to be as stupid, with as many jokes per minute, as possible. I think Charlie Sheen is perfect for this role, he does look serious, like some kind of a bad Rambo-wannabe, and a serious-looking person doing stupid things is always great. It's also great that Richard Crenna plays almost the same character as in Rambo 3, with many of his lines unchanged. If you've watched the Rambo-movies, (most important the third one), you'll get more of the gags and the dialogs, especially in the scenes from the Buddhist temple. Saddam Hussein is also excellent, he looks really like the real one! If you like stupid and crazy movies...WATCH THIS!