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City Slickers 2

• Sequel

I was shocked when I heard the premise for this one- the guys go to a cattle ranch. Hey, that was the original! If I wanted to see that again, I’d rent it. What was more painful is that the original beautifully setup a sequel and they dropped the ball.

The original told us that Billy Crystal and his buddies go away every summer for an adventure. We were shown an example, the bull run (excellent start), and then led into their next trip which became more than a vacation, it became a time to overcome their personal problems. So the sequel should’ve followed that lead and made the guys go on a different adventure where they would have faced other personal issues.

I admit, though, that any sequel would’ve paled in comparison to the original. Not because the original was so funny (which it was), but because it dealt with the biggest moments in the characters’ lives. It’s naturally all downhill from there. The sequel that I propose could’ve been fun and exciting, but it wouldn’t have had the same heart as the original. And it’s that heart that ultimately made the first one such a success.

The exception, again, is with hero/cop stories. There, the focus is not on the personal matters of the character so another movie with the same hero going after bad guys is accepted. Notice what happens with Lethal Weapon- the first develops a full character in Riggs and the second finds enough of it left and takes it in a new direction (learning the bad guys killed his ex…). But then 3 and 4 are not as good and that’s partly because there’s nothing new and interesting enough about Riggs. Relying mostly on action and wise-cracking in 3 and 4 make them inferior to 1 and 2 that had the same and depth.

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