Five stars? How about ten stars? OK, a hundred stars. Everything about this movie screams "Best Sequel to a Movie Starring a Dead Man and Only One Real Joke." Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you seen this movie? If not then you should "stop reading this right now and go get it," you lazy fool. How many times have you heard that one before?
In all honesty, I can't really recommend this movie to someone who's not already a fan. How are you going to justify spending two dollars to rent this movie to all of your art house nerd friends who would rather spend 94 minutes polishing their glasses (the ones with the dark rims) than watch anything as pedestrian as this? Well, let me tell you something: this movie is ART, and it is NOT pedestrian. In fact, I'd say this is the boldest, bravest movie of 1993. And here's why:
These two jokers, Richard and Lawrence, who already tempted fate once in the first movie, who barely got away with their lives, with their freedom, with their jobs, come back for a second round of corpse abuse. In the first movie, they have to fool the bad guys into believing that Bernie isn't really dead. They do this by a) excusing him as a passed out drunk, b) propping him upright, and c) rigging up a pulley system (not unlike the one Kevin used in Home Alone) to turn his body into big ol' puppet. It works like a charm and Richard and Lawrence avoid death at the hands of gangsters.
In the second movie, a voodoo priestess from the Caribbean sends her henchmen out to find Bernie in New York City and place a spell on him. This spell will cause Bernie to walk towards some hidden treasure, net value: $2,000,000 (before taxes). Meanwhile, Richard and Lawrence plan to once again use Bernie's body, this time to empty out the contents of his safe deposit box in the Caribbean! What a coincidence! More happens that's integral to the twisted plot but it would be a sin to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet. Ohhh, it's so crazy.
But to fully understand this movie, one must first understand its complex characters. So here's a little character map:
1.) Lawrence ("The Weasel"): Lawrence is a weasel. In the first movie, when Lawrence finds out Bernie's dead, he steals his watch. Then, in the second movie, when Lawrence sees Bernie dead in the morgue, he steals his watch again. Andrew McCarthy, who you may remember from the movie Mannequin, plays Lawrence. In Mannequin, McCarthy's character may or may not have had sex with a big, plastic doll. In Weekend at Bernie's II, McCarthy's character may or may not have had sex with a dead man. Does McCarthy's choice of roles say something about his true character?
2.) Richard ("Mr. Nice Guy"): Richard is an all-around nice guy, and very astute when it comes to crunching numbers. He should try crunching his butt into shape sometime because his ass is too big for this movie and, frankly, it's distracting. Richard is played by Jonathan Silverman, star of Caddyshack II.
3.) Bernie Lomax ("Dead"): Bernie Lomax is dead, and there ain't no bringing him back--or is there? One thing's for sure, there's no bringing his testicles back, because if memory serves me, Bernie spends most of the time getting them stomped into the ground. Terry Kiser, who you might have seen as Bernie in Weekend at Bernie's I, plays Bernie.
There are other characters such as the chick, the dude, the big dude, and the other chick, but they're just there so that we, the audience, can more fully realize the main characters. (One of 'em also has, you know, "sex" with Bernie. Cool!)
I think that this movie is outstanding, not because of the adequate camera work, nor the appropriate soundtrack, not even the mildly exotic locales, but, instead, its perfectly crafted script, and the ability of actor Terry Kiser to portray a dead man...a dead man named Bernie.
