In a sentenceCharlie Sheen out-kills Rambo with a straight face while Lloyd Bridges runs the free world on spare parts
Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) has left the Navy and wants nothing more to do with it. Colonel Denton Walters (Richard Crenna) tracks him down: American soldiers are being held in Iraq, one mission to free them has already failed, and Walters wants Topper on the next. Topper refuses. Walters goes without him and is captured too. CIA agent Michelle Rodham Huddleston (Brenda Bakke) tries again, with the backing of President Thomas ‘Tug’ Benson (Lloyd Bridges), who has had assorted parts of himself replaced after assorted wars. Topper agrees. He joins a team that includes Commander Arvid Harbinger (Miguel Ferrer), a killer who has started to lose the taste for it, and in Iraq he finds his old love Ramada (Valeria Golino), now Ramada Rodham Hayman, who has not forgotten him.
Plays from YouTube when you press play; nothing loads from them until then.
Jim Abrahams aims his spoof at Rambo this time, and about one joke in three lands. That is enough for 88 cheerful minutes, Lloyd Bridges is wonderful as the President, and the second half is largely the first half again.
Jim Abrahams’s sequel to Hot Shots takes Topper Harley out of the cockpit, ties a bandana round his head and sends him into Iraq to rescue the men who were sent to rescue the men who were sent to rescue the hostages. The target this time is Rambo and everything that copied it, and the method is the one Abrahams has used since Airplane: play every scene as if it mattered, put a joke in each corner of the frame, and move on before anyone can check whether it landed. Roughly one joke in three does. Over 88 minutes that is enough for a cheerful evening and not enough for anything more.
The action is the surprise. John R. Leonetti shoots the jungle raid as a real one, in heavy greens with sweat standing on every face and the muzzle flashes lighting the leaves, and Basil Poledouris writes the kind of brass-and-drums score he would give a film that meant it. Neither of them winks. The laughs come from what is put in front of that seriousness: the background gags Abrahams has always favoured, a prop changed in an otherwise faithful shot, a famous moment from Apocalypse Now replayed with one detail wrong. The sillier the thing in shot, the straighter it is lit and scored, and that is the whole trick.
Lloyd Bridges is the reason to stay. His President Thomas ‘Tug’ Benson has had assorted parts of himself replaced after assorted wars, cannot remember which, and runs the country with total confidence from under a layer of cheerful confusion. Bridges plays him without a single knowing look. We laughed out loud more often than we expected to, nearly all of it at Bridges, and most of that at how little he was doing while the lines went past. Jerry Haleva’s Saddam Hussein, pottering about his palace in a dressing gown, is the other performance pitched exactly right: a dictator as put-upon householder.
Charlie Sheen is a good straight man, and that is nearly all he is asked to be. He glowers, he sweats, he is handed lines lifted from other films and says them as if they were his own, which is correct. The trouble is what the script by Abrahams and Pat Proft puts around him. Valeria Golino’s Ramada, back from the first film, has an entrance and a past and almost no jokes. Brenda Bakke’s Michelle Rodham Huddleston exists for one Basic Instinct parody that was already familiar by the time the film reached cinemas. Rowan Atkinson’s Dexter Hayman is in it for a few minutes and is funny for most of them. Miguel Ferrer’s Harbinger, the hard man who has lost his nerve, gets the only subplot with a shape and plays it dead straight, which helps.
The second half repeats the first. Whole stretches of the assault on the compound follow Rambo: First Blood Part II beat for beat with a prop changed, and a changed prop is not always a joke. Malcolm Campbell cuts quickly enough that the misses do not sit there, but they add up, and by the hour mark we were counting the gap between laughs rather than laughing. William A. Elliott’s sets, the palace and the camp, are good enough to pass for the real thing, which is the point, and it also means there is nothing in them to look at when the writing goes quiet.
Against Airplane and Top Secret this is a lesser film. Those two aimed at genres the whole audience knew and hit something every few seconds. This one aims at a smaller target and misses more often, and more of the misses are plainly filling time. It is still funnier than the first Hot Shots, which took on Top Gun and seemed slightly afraid of it.
See it with someone who remembers the eighties action film and can name the scene being mocked, because half the jokes land in the recognition. On your own, Bridges will still make you laugh. It carries a 12, it runs 88 minutes, and it does not outstay the idea.
Most critics come down mildly in favour, though the reviews split almost evenly between enthusiasm and a shrug. Those who like it tend to find it funnier than the first film, and the praise clusters on the density of gags: the Rambo parody, the business going on in the background of shots, and action scenes staged convincingly enough for the spoofing to land. The Los Angeles Times and Variety both call it an improvement on the original.
The reservations are about the hit rate rather than the approach. Roger Ebert finds the barrage of jokes produces only occasional laughs, and the Radio Times thinks the sequel too reminiscent of its predecessor to stay consistently amusing. Even Variety admits some scenes copy their inspirations too closely. The spread is fairly wide, from near-rave to two stars, and the dissenters agree with the admirers about what the film is doing; they simply find it works less often.
Thomas finds the comedy often hilarious and at least as funny as the original, with its satire aimed at macho posturing. He praises the sharp, unpretentious craftsmanship and the rapid-fire jokes.
Read the full review →Errigo finds the sequel funnier and more successful than the original. She particularly praises its background gags and an Apocalypse Now joke she says is guaranteed to bring the house down.
Read the full review →Lowry finds the sequel a clever, often very funny improvement over the first film, with enough strong laughs to carry its weaker moments. He praises its spoofing of numerous movies and notes that convincing action scenes help the parody work, though some scenes imitate their inspirations too closely.
Read the full review →The accessible shell provides no critical verdict. Its description highlights the Rambo parody and Richard Crenna's return.
Read the full review →Ebert finds the comedy uneven, with the barrage of jokes yielding only occasional laughs. The film’s parody of action-movie conventions is the main source of amusement.
Read the full review →The review takes a mixed view of the film’s spoofing. Its headline points to the film’s smirking satire of action movies and political figures.
Read the full review →
Top Secret!Abrahams and the Zuckers at full strength, a joke a second and most of them land.
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!Leslie Nielsen does for the cop film what Bridges does for the presidency, only more so.
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of SpiesFrench spy spoof played with the same straight face and far sharper writing.
Team America: World Police · not reviewed yetThe eighties action film mocked again, this time with puppets and no mercy.
Hot Shots!The original, aimed at Top Gun; gentler, slower, and Bridges is already the best thing in it.
Free account
Two lists that know where things are streaming, collections you can share, your own score beside ours, and Discover that remembers what you have seen.
