Metacritic reviews

At least slightly more varied than the average fraternity-boy comedy.The nerds' rap number, in which they sing of nerd pride, is probably the high point of this whole endeavor.

For most of its length, Revenge of the Nerds II is pleasantly stupid summer fun, though it does have a nasty way of turning inspirational on you.

The movie operates on the same principle as the first: Show that each of us, however nerdy, has value; demonstrate that an ideal appearance can mask a nasty person; and give heart to nerds of the world by presenting these losers as triumphant. It does all these things, but not nearly as well as the first Nerds. [10 July 1987, p.D5]

As screenplays go, this is as idiotic as it gets. There are a couple of marginally funny moments in the movie, like the belching contest, but they don't go anywhere.

Director Joe Roth (Streets of Gold) seems content with recycling the negative charms of the '84 original and hoping that nobody will notice or care. Roth's no stranger to coarse enthusiasms (he produced the amiably crass Bachelor Party, as energetic as it was inept), but this one's on automatic pilot all the way.

This is a movie that doesn't just make you feel dumb, it makes you feel as if your head has been hollowed out and pumped full of Cheez Whiz.

The first Revenge of the Nerds was a pretty stupid movie. But it was partly redeemed by its genuine affection for the nerds themselves - it made us like them a lot, and you couldn't help feeling good when they came out on top. Nerds in Paradise is also a stupid movie, with more than its share of cheap vulgarity, and it doesn't do so well at making the heroes really lovable.

Crude, adolescent and not very funny.

Most of the jokes are either ethnic slurs, homosexual japes, or unfunny gags with not a shred of wit. Babes and brewskis are just not enough to carry an entire picture.

It's a gross parody of its original. And since the original was a gross parody to begin with, the whole thing begins to seem gaseous, overbright, hideously inflated, as if all the bodily function jokes were about to belch it right off the screen.