June 10, 1994
CITY SLICKERS II: THE LEGEND OF CURLY’S GOLD is the sequel to the Billy Crystal comedy adventure hit I reviewed in my summer of ’91 series. You may remember that Jack Palance won an Oscar for playing the surly trail boss Curly, who teaches Mitch (Billy Crystal, RUNNING SCARED) how to feel like less of a twerp, helps him deliver a baby calf, dies, and is bizarrely buried out in the middle of the desert. The sequel opens with Mitch riding out to visit Curly’s grave, only to have him reach and rise out of it, in a parody of the end of CARRIE. (A nightmare, of course.)
I thought it would be funny if they got Palance back just to do that scene, but this is actually a sequel that follows in the tradition of A BETTER TOMORROW 2, where the stand out character was killed in the first movie so they brought the actor back as his twin brother. Mitch keeps seeing Curly outside his window and shit, his friends think he’s losing it, but in fact Curly’s twin brother Duke is following him around trying to find a treasure map hidden in his brother’s hat, which Mitch has.
Part 1 co-star Bruno Kirby didn’t want to return because he was highly allergic to horses. But so was new director Paul Weiland (LEONARD PART 6, Mr. Bean), who also wished they had told him that “You’re not really gonna be the director; you’re there to hold Billy’s hand and really he’s gonna direct it.” This time Crystal has a writing credit alongside original screenwriters Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel (A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN). Cinematographer Dean Semler didn’t return, but they managed to get Adrian Biddle (ALIENS, WILLOW, THELMA & LOUISE), so once again it’s surprisingly well shot for a comedy like this, taking advantage of all the natural vistas and herds of cattle and shit. I gotta at least respect that – many comedies of the era wouldn’t bother.
The story starts a year after part 1, September 8th, 1992, Mitch’s 40th birthday. His wife Barbara (Patricia Wettig, ME AND VERONICA) gets him hyped up in the morning for an all night sex romp that will be endangered by obstacles including the unexpected arrival of Mitch’s shitty younger brother Glen (Jon Lovitz, MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD), the “vice president of lazy,” and then Mitch’s discovery of the map while putting on the cowboy hat for sex purposes. His best friend Phil (Daniel Stern, BLUE THUNDER) now works with him at the radio station, but hasn’t gotten over his divorce, so after they research the map and determine that it leads to bank robbery loot hidden by Curly’s dad, I guess the idea is that going on an adventure will cure his depression.
Part 1 character Clay Stone (Noble Willingham, THE LAST BOY SCOUT) sells them supplies, and later he and his partner Bud (Pruitt Taylor Vince, WILD AT HEART) figure out what they’re up to and try to ambush them, but Curly’s twin brother Duke shows up out of nowhere like Batman to rescue them, and they decide to work together to find the treasure. So they get their “we’re a bunch of pansies and you’re a salt of the earth man’s man who practices the cowboy way so we’re intimidated” tensions that the CITY SLICKERS saga and the whole Slickerverse are known for.
There’s a cliff, a rattlesnake, some cryptic clues, a stampede, a mine full of cobwebs with a TEMPLE OF DOOM inspired mine cart stunt, and if this were still the ‘80s there definitely would’ve been a GOONIES slide. Twists happen, plots are resolved, hearts are mildly broken then similarly warmed, friendships are reaffirmed.
Although not everyone from the original cast returned, they do find an excuse for a couple of the other dorks from the cattle drive to show up at the end. It was this generation’s AVENGERS: ENDGAME. Also he still somehow has Norman, the cow he delivered, living with him in New York City, and takes him jogging. Instead of bringing back Jake Gyllenhaal as the son they just have a comment about him hiding from Uncle Glen.
I’m really not a Billy Crystal guy, to me this is a very middlebrow, square type of humor that’s mildly amusing at best, no matter how delightful the score by Marc Shaiman (HOCUS POCUS) keeps insisting it is. For my tastes, Lovitz is the funniest part and the one scene that made me genuinely laugh is when Barbara and Mitch are complaining about Glen acting out scenes from THE GODFATHER PART II all the time. Phil thinks it’s amusing and gets him to do it, and during another scene in the other room we can occasionally hear that he’s in there still doing the scene. Lovitz of course delivers it with great commitment. And it’s kind of funny to realize that BARBIE’s joke about dudes being obsessed with THE GODFATHER is a timeless theme.
The first CITY SLICKERS is a mid-life crisis movie, with the fellas feeling unmanly and unfulfilled, Barbara worrying Mitch is gonna cheat on her if he doesn’t “find his smile,” and the one friend who’s missing here having a breakdown over unresolved issues from his childhood. I kinda think these guys are dipshits and some of what they romanticize is corny in a bad way, but at least the movie was about something. Part II doesn’t convincingly find a new theme, it just kinda half-assedly implies “uh, yeah, still unfulfilled or whatever, gotta put on hats again,” and that feels very empty. Who gives a shit if these guys find the gold? They don’t even really need it for anything.
I’m not alone in feeling that way. Critics at the time were probly harder on it than I am, being more attached to the first one. It probly didn’t lose money in the end but it was no smash, so they were never able to make CITY SLICKERS III: NORMAN’S ADVENTURE THROUGH TIME. As far as summer of ’94 sequels so far go I’d say it’s definitely better than 3 NINJAS KICK BACK, arguably better than BEVERLY HILLS COP III, definitely not as good as PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD.
Summer of ’94 connections: Beth Grant plays one of Mitch’s co-workers, and she was also one of the passengers in SPEED, released the same day. Mitch tries to be sexy by wearing only a cowboy hat during sex, which Woody Harrelson does more successfully in THE COWBOY WAY.
June 12th, 2024 at 6:38 pm
In BEERFEST a character drowns in a var of beer and his twin brother shows up to take his place and tells everybody to just call him by his brother’s name in tribute.