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WAYNE'S WORLD 2
Blu-ray Edition

Film review by Gordon Justesen
Technical specs by Michael Jacobson

Stars: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Christopher Walken, Tia Carrere, Kim Basinger
Director: Stephen Surjik
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Studio: Paramount
Features: Documentary, Commentary
Length: 94 Minutes
Release Date: May 12, 2009

“What do these guys do?”

“Well, their job is to walk back and forth with this big plate glass window every couple of minutes.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah, you’ve got to wonder if this is gonna pay off later.”

Film ***

When Wayne’s World turned out to be a breakout success in 1992, it seemed that a sequel was entirely inevitable. In late 1993, Wayne’s World 2 arrived in theaters, performing not so strongly compared to the first movie, but still proved to be 90 minutes of welcome laughs and music. Although WW2 pales in comparison to the sharpness of the original WW, it still manages to bring a smile to the face, as well as frequent injections of laughter, as it maintains the keen sense of humor much in the spirit of the first movie.

The movie picks up a year later following the first movie, with Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) now broadcasting their ever-popular show from an abandoned warehouse. Wayne is still dating luscious music babe Cassandra (Tia Carrere), who’s now on the heels of a major record deal, which is being over sought by sleek record producer Bobby, played by nothing less than Christopher Walken. Garth also finds himself under the seduction of Honey Hornee (Kim Basinger).

At the center of the plot of Wayne’s World 2 is Wayne and Garth’s attempt to stage a rock concert, a la Woodstock, but called Waynestock instead. Where does Wayne get the idea? He has a quite psychedelic dream where an Indian leads him in the desert to talk to no less than Jim Morrison, in a funny send up of The Doors movie. Morrison tells Wayne that the one thing he should do with his life is to put on a rock concert. His key words to Wayne are, “If you book them, they will come.” He also instructs Wayne that in order to pull this off successfully, he and Garth must go to London to locate Del Preston (Ralph Brown), who is supposedly the world’s greatest stage manager.

The comedic highlight in WW2 is perhaps a spoof the badly dubbed martial arts flicks, where Wayne meets Cassandra’s father, and the two engage in a riotous fight scene, complete with the dubbed dialogue, and loud swooshing sound effects every time a movement is made. Another standout scene comes when Wayne and Garth, along with two other cohorts, engage in a little spy activity, and are pursued into a club, where they are mistaken for the Village People, and perform a funny version of “YMCA”. The movie also features a huge list of cameos, including Heather Locklear, Drew Barrymore, Ed O’Neil, Charlton Heston, Chris Farley, and there’s even an appearance (two scenes to be exact) from Aerosmith.

Video ****

Excellent!  Paramount has done an impressive job with this sequel; one might even say, better than expected.  For a simple comedy, there are bits of action and style that deliver well in high definition, with clean crisp and detailed images and good natural coloring throughout.  I originally saw this movie theatrically, but from memory, I would say this Blu-ray experience is an improvement over even that.

Audio ***1/2

I like hearing Wayne and Garth in TrueHD...what can I say?  Though mostly dialogue-driven, as mentioned, a couple of sequences of action and some nice stretches of music give this track some more dynamic range to blend with the more ambient and spoken-word moments.  Not a tremendous amount of rear channel usage, but the subwoofer comes alive here and there for some extra low frequency kicks.  The overall balance and mixing is smoothly done.

Features **1/2

The primary features on the disc are a running commentary by director Stephen Surjik, and a documentary on the making of the movie titled “Wayne’s World 2: Extreme Close-Up”.

Summary: