{"id":2684,"date":"2024-08-22T15:58:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T15:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2684"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:30:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:30:59","slug":"house-party-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/22\/house-party-2\/","title":{"rendered":"House Party 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"House Party 2<\/strong> (1991)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, comic violence and sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Doug McHenry and George Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Daryl G. Nickens and Rusty Cundieff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Vassal Benford\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Francis Kenny\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 23, 1991 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kid \u2018n Play (Christopher \u201cKid\u201d Reid and Christopher \u201cPlay\u201d Martin), Full Force (Paul Anthony, Bow-Legged Lou and B-Fine), Tisha Campbell, Martin Lawrence, Iman, Queen Latifah, Georg Stanford Brown, Kamron, Helen Martin, William Schallert, Tony Burton, Louie Louie, D. Christopher Judge, George Anthony Bell, Barry Diamond, Christopher Michael, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Ralph Tresvant, Whoopi Goldberg.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $19.4M (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0The first House Party worked so well because it had a father-son relationship story at its heart to keep it grounded. That the father was played by the hilarious Robin Harris made it funny as well. Sadly, Harris died shortly after the first movie was released. As such, his character Pop is deceased as well. So what we get with House Party 2<\/strong> is a son trying to honor his father\u2019s memory rather than fearing a belt whipping if he gets caught at something. It adds a note of pathos to the funny, energetic sequel to the hit 1990 movie. It\u2019s good, but Harris\u2019 absence is deeply felt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What we also get with House Party 2<\/strong> is an enjoyable college comedy that puts our hero Kid (Reid of the rap duo Kid \u2018n Play) in the position of having to recover his tuition money, raised by his father\u2019s church, after Play (Martin, the other half of Kid \u2018n Play) loses it to a con artist (model Iman) posing as a record executive. The unsympathetic dean (Schallert, The Patty Duke Show) gives him a week to come up with the money or be kicked out of college. Kid is also experiencing romantic woes with his girlfriend Sydney (Campbell, School Daze) who\u2019s fallen under the spell of her ultra-liberated roommate Zora (rapper Queen Latifah). With the tuition deadline closing in, Play comes with the brilliant idea of holding another big party. And not just any party, it\u2019s a pajama party to which they\u2019ll charge $10 admission to the guys while girls wearing sexy PJs get in free.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unfortunately, Kid\u2019s nemeses from high school (R&B group Full Force) are still around having gotten jobs as campus security guards. When they get word of the party, they set out to put a stop to the fun. That they\u2019re completely inept is a BIG point in Kid and Play\u2019s favor. Also on hand for the festivities are their DJ friend Bilal (comedian Lawrence) and Kid\u2019s roommate Jamal (Kamron of the rap group Young Black Teenagers), a white guy who acts and speaks black. How this guy doesn\u2019t get punched out all the time is a mystery and a miracle rolled into one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Doug McHenry and George Jackson (producers of New Jack City), House Party 2<\/strong> places greater emphasis on the comedy with goofy characters, silly sound effects and a wild chase scene at the party with the heroes chasing down every antagonist in sight. It\u2019s during this party scene we see a few familiar faces from the first movie make return appearances. We also get to see performances from Ralph Tresvant and Tony! Toni! Tone! Hello again, 1991! McHenry and Jackson strike a nice balance of comedy and more serious material like Kid missing his father. In a slightly off-putting plot device, a picture of Pop occasionally comes to life to offer advice (via clips from the first movie). They also touch upon the themes of friendship, responsibility and becoming an adult. It\u2019s so nice to see a comedy that isn\u2019t mean-spirited. Kid doesn\u2019t have a mean bone in his lanky body not even when it comes to the arrogant, lying jerk, Miles (Judge, Stargate SG-1), moving in on Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Headlining act Kid \u2018n Play are right on-point again with their naturalistic style and easy chemistry. It shows even when the two friends are at odds over Play\u2019s mishandling of money that didn\u2019t belong to him. BTW, I never mentioned Kid\u2019s cool Eraserhead hair style. It\u2019s AWESOME! Campbell has some good moments as a young woman in transition. To what, she\u2019s not sure. She admires her PC roommate very much but is that who Sydney is? College is the time when young people typically begin to find out who they are, ideologically and otherwise. Latifah, who gets a musical number of her own, is very good. So is Georg Stanford Brown (Stir Crazy) as a tough black lit professor and Tony Burton (the Rocky movies) as Kid\u2019s military-like boss at the faculty dining hall. Helen Martin, aka Weeping Wanda from Good Times, provides a few laughs as the thugs\u2019 grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Granted, House Party 2<\/strong> isn\u2019t as great as its predecessor but how many sequels are? It falls short in a few areas but makes up for it with a fun spirit. Like the first movie, it\u2019s about kids looking for a good time only this time it takes a detour before arriving at the party. Still, it\u2019s one of the better sequels I\u2019ve seen.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Party 2 (1991)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, comic violence and sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Doug McHenry and George Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Daryl G. Nickens and Rusty Cundieff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Vassal Benford\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Francis Kenny\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 23, 1991 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kid \u2018n Play (Christopher \u201cKid\u201d Reid and Christopher \u201cPlay\u201d Martin), Full Force (Paul […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3615,"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-2684","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\/House-Party-2-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\/2684","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=2684"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3616,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions\/3616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}