{"id":1523,"date":"2024-08-03T05:01:33","date_gmt":"2024-08-03T05:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1523"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:47:37","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:47:37","slug":"weekend-at-bernies-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/03\/weekend-at-bernies-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (brief nudity, mild language, tasteless humor)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Klane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Klane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Peter Wolf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Edward Morey III\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 9, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, Terry Kiser, Troy Beyer, Barry Bostwick, Tom Wright, Steve James, Novella Nelson, Phil Coccioletti, Gary Dourdan, James Lally, Michael Rogers, Stack Pierce, Constance Shulman, Jennie Moreau, Curt Karibalis, Peewee Piemonte.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $12.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hindsight, it\u2019s funny how it works. When I saw Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong>, the sequel to the surprise hit 1989 comedy, I hated it. It found it lame and unfunny. I believe I commented at the time, \u201cThat putrid smell coming from the screen isn\u2019t the rotting corpse of Bernie Lomax, but the screenplay for this rotten sequel.\u201d I thought it was clever at the time, but now it no longer applies. Once again, I find myself in the semi-awkward position of revising my opinion of a movie I initially condemned.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know what came over me in deciding to rewatch Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong>. I wanted to see a bad movie so I could write a scathing review. I admit it, I have a bit of a mean streak when it comes to awful movies. By that, I don\u2019t mean entertainingly bad movies like Troll 2, Reefer Madness and The Apple. I mean truly heinous films like It\u2019s Pat: The Movie, Caligula and the recent Mummy reboot. There\u2019s no reason to see any of these although it could be argued that Caligula should be watched at least once just to say you\u2019ve actually seen it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In any event, I had my poison pen at the ready to really rip into Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> when a funny thing happened. I laughed. I laughed several times. I could hardly believe it, but there I was laughing my ass off at this stupid, mindless comedy about two boneheads and a corpse. I must be losing my<\/em> mind, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> picks up not long after the last one left off. Larry (McCarthy, Mannequin) and Richard (Silverman, Caddyshack II) are at the Manhattan morgue identifying the body of their deceased crooked boss Bernie (Kiser, Mannequin II). They think their troubles are over. They return to work expecting a promotion and a raise. Instead, they get fired. Their boss thinks they were in on the $2 million embezzlement with their late boss. Why else would they be at his vacation house with him? The boss tasks company investigator Arthur Hummel (Bostwick, The Rocky Horror Picture Show) with proving their guilt and retrieving the stolen money.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u2019s not the only one interested in finding the $2M which might be in a safety deposit box in the Virgin Islands. It turns out Bernie was involved with a cartel and they want the missing money too. They hire voodoo queen Mobu (Nelson, The Cotton Club) to find it. She sends a couple of black homeboy-types, Charles (Wright, Marked for Death) and Henry (James, the American Ninja movies), to go to New York, steal Bernie\u2019s body from the morgue and bring him back to life using a voodoo spell. If all goes according to plan, his reanimated body will lead them directly to the money. Naturally, something goes wrong and the none-too-bright dudes succeed only in making him move when music is playing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter how, but Bernie ends up back at the morgue where Larry and Richard sneak in and stuff his body in a suitcase. They need him to gain access to the safety deposit box. The threesome heads to the Virgin Islands where their best laid plans go seriously awry quickly. Given that their best is half-assed on good days, it\u2019s no surprise. With all that\u2019s going on, you\u2019d think they have no time to socialize. It doesn\u2019t stop Larry from picking up a beautiful native girl, Claudia (Beyer, Disorderlies), he sees walking on the beach. What they don\u2019t know is that Hummel followed them there and is watching their every move. Also, Charles and Henry also end up back on the Islands where they try to regain possession of Bernie who appears to be having the time of his life even though he\u2019s dead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the first movie, dead Bernie went waterskiing. In Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong>, he goes parasailing. He also conga dances, canoodles with a clueless girl on the beach, fights her boyfriend (and wins), scuba dives and pulls a horse carriage (which, of course, goes wildly out of control when he reaches a hill). That\u2019s all in addition to the abuse his corpse endures throughout his latest misadventure. He\u2019s dropped, dragged, stuffed in a mini-bar refrigerator and misplaced more often than car keys. He gets his balls crunched a few times too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> is in very bad taste. What\u2019s so funny about a corpse being abused? It\u2019s actually a crime. All I can say is that I laughed like hell at the first movie and again at the second. One of my favorite scenes is when Charles and Henry revive Bernie in the men\u2019s room of a sleazy Times Square porno theater. The ceremony includes playing voodoo-type drum music on their boom box. Almost as soon as they turn it on, they start boogying and screeching like James Brown. I realize these characters are offensive stereotypes, but isn\u2019t a comedy about corpse abuse offensive in and of itself?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I honestly don\u2019t know what to say about the acting. Is it even worth discussing? McCarthy and Silverman once again nail the whole Odd Couple thing. Richard is an uptight, serious type; Larry is the irresponsible one. Kiser plays a corpse very well although I\u2019m not sure that counts as praise. I\u2019ll say this for Bernie though; he\u2019s livelier in death than he probably was in life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The one depressing thing about Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> is watching a frail, obviously ailing James trying to keep up with his co-stars (he died of pancreatic cancer in December of that year). I couldn\u2019t help but remember how painful it was watching Richard Pryor in Another You (his final starring role) two years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I guess the important thing is whether Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> is funny or not. I didn\u2019t think so before. I remember sitting in the theater feeling physically ill from not laughing. Of course, comedies have changed significantly (as have I) since summer \u201993. They\u2019re not funny anymore. Most of them are just crude, profane, vulgar and gross. Crappy movies like The House, Daddy\u2019s Home and the Vacation reboot make movies like Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II<\/strong> seem like comedy gold. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s a lost classic. It will never be that. It is, however, better than I originally thought. It\u2019s silly, stupid and completely devoid of anything resembling intelligence. I can think of worse ways to kill 97 minutes.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (brief nudity, mild language, tasteless humor)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Klane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Klane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Peter Wolf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Edward Morey III\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 9, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, Terry Kiser, Troy Beyer, Barry Bostwick, Tom Wright, Steve James, Novella Nelson, Phil Coccioletti, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Weekend-at-Bernies-II-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1523"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2055,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions\/2055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}