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Wayne's World 2
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (16th July 2009). |
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The Film
 After the enormous success of "Wayne's World" (1992) as sequel was fast-tracked, coming in a year after the first was no real surprise, after all these films are cheap to make, quick to shoot and easy to release to the in-built audience the characters picked up during their "SNL" (1975-Present) run. The sequel, like most, tend to take things to another level, the budget is slightly bigger, the story is slightly more ambitious and the jokes that worked in the first film are recycled in the second and stretched out and made "bigger", sadly for Paramount, "Wayne's World 2" didn't hit as well as the first, it still made decent coin at the box office but it was rated lower than the first, especially by fans. In saying that, I actually liked the second film better than the first... seriously. A year after the events of the first film, things have really changed for the boys. Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) are now living with each other, Garth finally got his pubes and his "Sports Illustrated" football phone. Wayne and Cassandra's (Tia Carrere) relationship is going pretty well and they are back to doing their usual show. This time around Wayne has big plans to put their town on the map, arrange a massive outdoor rock festival, with the help of the spirit of Jim Morrison (Michael A. Nickles) and a Naked Indian (Larry Sellers) they try and organize the event but the bands are not responding. Meanwhile Cassandra's manager, Bobby Cahn (Christopher Walken) is trying to break her up from her loser boyfriend and take her to Los Angeles where she can really hit it big. A lot of people who loved the first film, didn't really find the second to be all that great and it might actually surprise people to learn that I actually prefer this second film to the original. Every part of me, as a film fan and reviewer should hate this film. From it's recycled jokes (the same old schtick is here) to the goofing on other films, this sequel is filled with yet more parody that transports you right back to 1993 should leave a lot to be desired. Wayne and Garth's antics really haven't changed all that much, only this time they're living together which adds a few more easy and obvious jokes to materialize. For all intents and purposes this film is essentially a quick cash-in opportunity for the studio. And despite that there are several elements added to this film that actually made it funnier to watch, and from my perspective a whole lot more memorable than its predecessor. So, what's so funny? I found the addition of the Naked Indian, the roadie Del (Ralph Brown) and his M&M speeches, the erratic and over-the-top prescience of Chris Farley (in a slightly larger supporting role than his Security Guard character from the first film) and the small but memorable cameo appearance of Charton Heston make this a much funnier film than the first. Farley especially made me laugh every time he bumbled his way through the scenes, he's a great comic actor and is particularly funny as a supporting character in short bursts. Farley in his leading roles got tedious and annoying after about 20 minutes, and here in "Wayne's World 2" the filmmakers put just enough of him to make an impact. Del is another great addition to the cast, I can recite his M&M dialogue verbatim, and the one about being in India and having to beat the shopkeeper to death with his own shoes always makes me laugh almost endlessly. "Wayne's World 2" has many (many!) jokes that fall flat, the story, much like the first is thin, it's the no surprise there wasn't a third film in the series (and hopefully there never will be), it's a film that fans either loved or hated and although many fans that were garner after the first jumped ship after the second, I still think it's worth checking out... I guess.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen in high-definition 1080p 24/fps and mastered in AVC MPEG-4 compression. This transfer is much like the first film's, with a fairly decent color palette and is mostly sharp, however some noisy black levels and overall flatness of the image tend to keep it firmly placed in mediocrity. I was happy to see that the film featured hardly any dirt and specks which was a pleasant surprise.
Audio
Three audio tracks are included here in English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as well as standard Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in both French and Spanish. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its TrueHD audio, and I found this audio track to be slightly better than the first film. There was a bit more activity in the surrounds, locations felt more open but the overall audio was front heavy. The music comes across well and ambient sounds are pretty good. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Extras
Paramount has released this film with an audio commentary and a single featurette. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up is a feature-length audio commentary by the film's director Stephen Surjik is an altogether average effort. It's a basic track that seems to cover all the basics and obvious information is spat out here. He talks about the production, on making a sequel and working with his cast and dealing with the real life rock stars that cameo in this film, he briefly talks logistics but to be honest I was relatively bored by with within the 20 minute mark. I've listened to some real boring tracks, and while this one doesn't necessarily crack my top ten, he really could have used some help with the addition of more participants. The only other extra on this disc is "Wayne's World 2: Extreme Close-Up" featurette which runs for 14 minutes 6 seconds, more of the same as the previous film, this clip takes a look back at the making of the film and includes more talking head interviews. It glosses over the production and doesn't go into too much detail. it's interesting to note that Myers had disagreements with the director of the first film and the clip tends to forget... or rather ignore the fact that this film was a relative failure.
Overall
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