With the characters established and the basic 'world' already delineated, one would expect Wayne's World 2 to just be more of the same, but some real thought was actually put into their second outing. The plot is more complicated this time around, but keeps the focus on the two central personalities, putting Myers through some interesting paces with a Twin Peaks-like hallucination (a half-naked Indian leads the sleeping Myers to see Jim Morrison), and turning sexpot Kim Basinger loose on the utterly defenseless Garth. The satire of commercial Rock 'n Roll is even more accurate, with our heroes confronted by moronic fans, and saddled with a burned-out 'rock legend' who has a great superstar scrapbook but tends toward senility. Christopher Walken's character is nicely underplayed, the gags come faster and mostly as fresh. Even when the material is obvious (the Village People routine) the enthusiasm makes it enjoyable. The film even drags Charlton Heston in for a particularly hilarious gag. Only at the very end did the fun sag a bit, when the movie parodies of The Graduate and Thelma & Louise fail to build into anything. But who's perfect?

Although Savant has little use for the infantile poo-poo humor level of most of Myers' Austin Powers, he finds both Wayne's World movies the equivalent of Bob Hope or Red Skelton vehicles. This was one favorite of my son's that I didn't have to pretend to like.

Paramount Home Video's DVDs of Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2 are technically topnotch, with bright pictures and punchy audio. The audio commentaries are okay, but not standouts. I sampled Stephen Surjik's track on the sequel in half a dozen places, and everything he had to say was pretty predictable, like 'Mike really wanted the Kung-Fu parody', or 'Chuck Heston was a nice guy.' The best gag on the disk is the clever menu setup, which mimics a cable channel guide. A bunch of provocative titles like Fun with Fire slip out of our reach, but we are allowed to select cable programs like The Brady Bunch, an exercise program, or an Elvis movie, all available or soon to be available from Paramount home video, naturally. Actual little clips pop up when we make our choice ... very cute. Paramount seems to have acquired all or part of the Republic library, as can be seen by a quick snippet of a Nyoka serial with a jungle girl menaced by a giant crawfish! (Yes, those are the kinds of associations Savant makes!).

So to help keep it all straight, Wayne's World = Alice Cooper. Wayne's World 2 = Aerosmith.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Wayne's World 2 rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Trailer, commentary by Stephen Surjik, cast and crew interviews.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: August 4, 2001