Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment [Click to enlarge]

The original 1984 "Bachelor Party," starring Tom Hanks, was an unabashedly raunchy, but at times genuinely funny movie. The characters were mostly very likable and watchable. It's something a sequel wouldn't hurt to live up to. Having just finished watching "Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation," I can certainly say that this movie was one hour and 44 minutes long.

I say that because I was painfully aware of every minute that passed. Time ticked by as the trite formula of "Bachelor Party 2" became apparent in just the first few scenes. Ron (Josh Cooke) is the main character of the movie, and he just got engaged. He deeply and truly loves his new fiancée, Melinda (Sara Foster). But Todd (Warren Christie) is a total jerk, and wants to break up Ron's engagement. Todd tries to tempt Ron into cheating on his fiancée at Ron's weekend-long bachelor party. That's the basic storyline, and I don't think I'm spoiling the plot too much when I say this: There are no twists.

The story is unfortunately shallow and the characters are no better. Present and accounted for in this movie were the bitter divorcee, the overconfident party-guy, the neurotic guy and the well-rounded hero, all of whom are straight out of the cookie-cutter. The bad guy was evil and the damsel was innocent. Everyone was single-layered.

I'm not a stickler for intelligent humor. I don't mind laughing if somebody does something stupid and then falls down. But, a vast majority of the humor in this movie fell well short of any of those thresholds, intellectual or otherwise, that would compel me to laugh. In one scene at a bowling alley, Ron's friend Derek (Harland Williams) throws a used baby's diaper into the bowling ball return. Clearly, we will see this diaper again. Later, another friend says to Derek, "Hey don't forget your ball," and then we see Derek's ball with a baby's diaper stuck to it, rolling back to him. No surprise there, and no laughter from me. It seems that the humor in "Bachelor Party 2" was written not only for 14-year-olds but by 14-year-olds. Honestly, this review is funnier than the movie itself.

Some of the jokes were almost good, but the execution was poor. In one scene, Derek and Ron are bragging to two women about their financial history, but the women thought that they were bragging about having sex with other men. The idea seemed clever, but the writing was a little too general and the delivery was too disingenuous. It just didn't quite work.

Most of the scenes seemed like flimsy excuses to have actresses expose their breasts. And that is no exaggeration. There are a lot of exposed breasts in this movie, but that's not a put-down. Depending on the audience, that is a major selling point. It would have just been nice if "Bachelor Party 2" were good in more than just the way a "Girls Gone Wild" video is "good."

Jesse Fernandez can be reached at jfernandez@statehornet.com

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