{"id":4359,"date":"2024-10-05T21:16:41","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T21:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4359"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:33:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:33:55","slug":"wild-geese-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/wild-geese-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Geese II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wild Geese II<\/strong> (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thorn EMI\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 125 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, language, some suggestive content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Hunt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Reginald Rose\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Roy Budd\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Reed\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 18, 1985 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera, Edward Fox, Laurence Olivier, Robert Webber, Robert Freitag, Kenneth Haigh, Stratford Johns, Derek Thompson, Paul Antrim, John Terry, Ingrid Pitt, Malcolm Jamieson, David Lumsden, Frederick Warder, Patrick Stewart.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $69,342 (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0I remember trying to watching Wild Geese II<\/strong> on cable one early summer night in \u201987. I got bored and switched channels before it reached the midway point. It didn\u2019t hold my interest which was odd because I\u2019m an AJ4L (Action Junkie 4 Life). I knew it at 19 and I\u2019m still going strong at 50+.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I decided to give Wild Geese II<\/strong> a second chance after rewatching the first movie a couple of weeks back. I had nothing to lose (except two hours of my life) since it\u2019s currently streaming for free on Amazon Prime. This time, I made it all the way through. Although it takes a while to kick into full gear, I wasn\u2019t bored. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a good movie. It isn\u2019t. It\u2019s not a bad one either. I believe the correct descriptive term for Wild Geese II<\/strong> is ludicrous. Dumb and silly will also do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s start with a little backstory. Richard Burton was supposed to reprise his role from the original movie, but he died about a week before filming commenced. After a bit of retooling, Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal) was cast as the brother of Burton\u2019s character, also a mercenary-for-hire. Wild Geese II<\/strong>, which begins with clips of Burton from the first Wild Geese, is dedicated to the actor\u2019s memory. Any tribute is better than none, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot centers on a mission to break Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess (a visibly frail Olivier in his next-to-last role) out of Spandau Prison in West Berlin. Alex Faulkner (Fox) is summoned to a meeting with international news network execs, siblings Kathy (Carrera, Never Say Never Again) and Michael (Terry, The Living Daylights), who will pay any price for the opportunity to interview Hess who has information that would destroy some prominent political figures. They want him to break Hess, the sole occupant of Spandau, out of jail. Alex turns down the job, referring them instead to fellow mercenary John Haddad (Glenn, The Challenge) who accepts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Haddad goes to West Berlin to start planning the operation only to find out other parties are interested in Hess including East German spy Stroebling (Freitag, The Great Escape), rogue British officer Col. Henry (Haigh, Cleopatra) and, of course, the Russians. Come on, it wouldn\u2019t be a party without those trustiest of 80s baddies, the Soviets! He\u2019s joined in his mission by Alex (an expert marksman, btw), stunt driver Pierre (Jamieson, Victor Victoria), IRA soldier Hourigan (Thompson, The Long Good Friday) and Lebanese mercs Joseph (Lumsden, A Prayer for the Dying) and Jamil (Warder, The Living Daylights).<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a deviation from the male-dominated Wild Geese, Wild Geese II<\/strong> adds estrogen to the mix with Kathy joining Haddad in Berlin to oversee the operation. Naturally, they become romantically involved. You know what this means, right? It means Haddad will have to rescue her from the bad guys at some point during the mission. Otherwise, this subplot is rather superfluous.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I understand what Wild Geese II<\/strong> is going for and it doesn\u2019t quite get there. It wants to be one of those big star-studded actioners that were popular in the 60s and 70s. It\u2019s missing the big stars. The first one had Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger. Wild Geese II<\/strong> has Glenn, Carrera, Fox, Olivier and Robert Webber (The Dirty Dozen) who literally phones it in as the network president. Olivier doesn\u2019t show up until the final 25 minutes and he\u2019s unconscious for most of it. When he finally comes to, he delivers a monologue about not wanting to be a part of modern society. Great makeup job, btw. His resemblance to the real Hess is uncanny. The normally reliable Glenn turns in a disappointingly wooden performance as the hero of the piece, a Lebanese-American with a tragic history. He kicks ass pretty good though, I\u2019ll give him that. Carrera is HOT! She can\u2019t act worth a damn, but she\u2019s nice to look at. Fox shows the most signs of life as Alex, a charming rascal that knows his way around rifles and bazookas. Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: TNG) overacts shamelessly in a small role as a Russian general.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Once the action starts, Wild Geese II <\/strong>is pretty decent. HOWEVER, it should be better than pretty decent with Peter Hunt (On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service) in the director\u2019s chair. This movie should rock, but it doesn\u2019t. Things get convoluted with all the different groups trying to force Haddad to deliver Hess to them for different reasons. It just isn\u2019t the action movie it ought to be. Still, it\u2019s enjoyable if taken on its own terms. I can\u2019t say why I like it exactly. I remember seeing the poster for it at Video Den, so maybe it\u2019s my sense of nostalgia for violent 80s actioners. It could be the passage of time has helped me to appreciate it more. Perhaps it\u2019s the ridiculousness of it all. I don\u2019t know. All I can say is I found Wild Geese II<\/strong> entertaining this time around. I can\u2019t promise you\u2019ll feel the same about it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wild Geese II (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thorn EMI\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 125 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, language, some suggestive content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Hunt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Reginald Rose\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Roy Budd\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Reed\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 18, 1985 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera, Edward Fox, Laurence Olivier, Robert Webber, Robert Freitag, Kenneth Haigh, Stratford Johns, Derek Thompson, Paul […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Wild-Geese-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\/4359","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=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5683,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions\/5683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}