{"id":3885,"date":"2024-09-07T02:57:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T02:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3885"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:34:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:34:47","slug":"hot-shots-part-deux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/07\/hot-shots-part-deux\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Shots! Part Deux"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hot Shots! Part Deux<\/strong> (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century Fox\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, comic violence, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jim Abrahams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jim Abrahams and Pat Proft\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Basil Poledouris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John R. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 21, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Bridges, Valeria Golino, Richard Crenna, Brenda Bakke, Ryan Stiles, Rowan Atkinson, Jerry Haleva, David Wohl, Mitchell Ryan, Michael Colyar, Gregory Sierra, Clyde Kusatsu.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $38.9M (US)\/$133.7M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The good news is Hot Shots! Part Deux<\/strong> is better than its predecessor albeit marginally so. That\u2019s due in large part to co-star Richard Crenna doing a perfect send-up of his character in the Rambo films. This installment, once again directed by Jim Abrahams and once again Zucker-less, spoofs the jingoistic action movies of the 80s, most notably Rambo III (1988).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Personally, I prefer those violent action fantasies over the rah-rah Tom Cruise vehicle Top Gun (the main target of the first movie). Maybe that\u2019s why I like Hot Shots! Part Deux<\/strong> better. It could also be that Abrahams and co-writer Pat Proft seem a bit more assured this time around. A great many gags still fall flat, but not quite as many as the first time around. Lloyd Bridges, promoted to President of the US, does a better job as well. He incorporates aspects of Reagan and Bush (Sr.) to create a humorous facsimile of a Republican Commander-in-Chief. Still, he\u2019s basically rehashing his character from the first movie with continued references to his many artificial body parts. This, however, is not a reflection of the movie as a whole. I wouldn\u2019t necessarily call Hot Shots! Part Deux<\/strong> a complete rehash. There is a difference between Top Gun and Rambo.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie opens with the attempted rescue of American soldiers being held prisoner in Iraq. They show up at the palace of Saddam Hussein (lookalike Haleva) where the dictator is getting ready for bed. It\u2019s an amusing sequence, check out some of the things in his refrigerator. The team is captured because the Iraqis were prepared for them. It\u2019s suspected there\u2019s a saboteur within the ranks, so Colonel Waters (Crenna) decides to seek outside help for the next mission. That would be Topper Harley (Sheen), once again retired from the Navy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The war hero now resides at a Buddhist monastery and turns Waters down flat. The next mission turns out to be another failure and Waters is captured. Topper changes his mind and leads a rescue team into Iraq. He suspects that one of his men, Harbinger (Ferrer, RoboCop), is the unknown saboteur. They meet up with their contact in the jungle and it turns out to be Ramada (Golino, Rain Man), Topper\u2019s ex-girlfriend. We soon learn what caused them to break up, namely a scenario straight out of Casablanca. Making matters more complicated is the attractive CIA agent (Bakke, Under Siege 2) that accompanies the rescue team. She and Topper are romantically involved, but now that Ramada is back in the picture \u2026.. oh, you get the idea.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition to the Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux<\/strong> also goofs on Casablanca, Basic Instinct, No Way Out, Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Lady and the Tramp. For me, the funniest moment is when Sheen (in full Platoon mode) encounters father Martin (in full Apocalypse Now mode) on a river. Their brief exchange is classic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I laughed more frequently this time around, but it was still wasn\u2019t the same kind elicited by Airplane and The Naked Gun. Most of the cast appears to be in on the joke, but Crenna tries to play it straight. That\u2019s a large part of the effectiveness of Airplane. Sheen does a near-perfect impression of Rambo replete with long hair. The major difference is that you understand every word he says. Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) comes off as annoying; I\u2019m glad that his role was so brief. Abrahams and Proft deliver a few funny scenes. One in particular pokes fun at the high body counts typical of the genre. They also do a great send-up of the infamous limo scene from No Way Out. Bridges gets a shout-out for recreating the infamous Bush vomiting incident. Like I said, the makers seem surer of themselves this time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Still, Abrahams needs the brothers Zucker. Together, they create comedy magic. Separately, not so much. I still wouldn\u2019t call Hot Shots! Part Deux<\/strong> a particularly good movie, but it\u2019s a step up. The makers get points for not simply recycling material from the first movie. Look how that worked out for Airplane II: The Sequel (1982). It\u2019s funny as long as you don\u2019t expect too much from it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, comic violence, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jim Abrahams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jim Abrahams and Pat Proft\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Basil Poledouris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John R. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 21, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Bridges, Valeria Golino, Richard Crenna, Brenda Bakke, Ryan Stiles, Rowan Atkinson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Hot-Shots-Part-Deux-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\/3885","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=3885"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4963,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885\/revisions\/4963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}