BLUES BROTHERS 2000


RATING: ½


By Shawn McKenna
Date Reviewed: 6/26/2000

"We're on a mission from God." -- Elwood Blues

In cinema, there is not much worse than a bad sequel to a classic or original film. Add Blues Brothers 2000 to the list of sequels that should not have been made that includes French Connection II, More American Graffiti Psycho II and Return to Oz. I could not watch this film in one siting. I watched over half the movie and in disgust -- turned it off. Over a week later, I finally finished the film. Unluckily, the second half was as bad as the first half.

The best moment of the film was at the beginning when Elwood, fresh from the slammer, waits for his brother Jake outside the prison. Jake is dead, but no one tells Elwood this fact until a day later. After he is picked up, he visits the "penguin" and hears more disturbing news. The orphanage where he grew up is closed. This fact particularly disturbed me because it negates all the past actions from the first film. The Blues Brothers put so much effort into saving the orphanage in the first film and it does not mean anything in the second. In addition, his mentor, played by Cab Calloway in the previous film, is also dead.

Jake leaves the "penguin" dejected, sans hope, though now he has a new companion -- a runaway orphan. He shacks up in the back of a men's club owned by an old friend where he meets future Blues Brother, John Goodman. After angering the Russian Mob and having their residence torched, they decide, for some reason, to put the band back together.

The biggest problem with this film is that it repeatedly rips off sketches from the first film and plays them with less gusto. The plots the same. The band needs to be put back together, but why? The enemies are rehashed. In the first film, the car chases were an intricate part of the plot. In this film, the chases are similar to the prequel, but lack the panache of the original. One car chase involves police automobiles running off an invisible ramp and slamming on top of each other for no apparent reason -- the car chase had ended minutes ago. The contrived music scenes were clear rip-offs of the first film. Everything about this film seems contrived.

There are many other problems with this film. There is a seedy element in this film that was not in the first. The humor is missing from this film. For some reason, the writers added unrealistic voodoo scenes that negated the previous Christian theme of the series. When you thought this film could not get any worse, the ending proved you wrong. The ending negates everything the characters do in the film.

Instead of watching this film, watch the original Blues Brothers or the original Saturday Night Live skits. This film proves that John Belushi can not be replaced and The Blues Brothers should not have been made into a sequel.



THE BLUES BROTHERS (1998)
CAST
Buster: J. Evan Bonifant
Elwood Blues: Dan Aykroyd
Mighty Mack McTeer: John Goodman
Mother Mary Stigmata: Kathleen Freeman
CREDITS
Director: John Landis
Written by: Dan Aykroyd and John Landis
STATS
Running Time: 124m.
Rated: PG-13
Genre: Action/Comedy/Musical
Country: USA


Other Critics:

Roger Ebert
Leonard Maltin ????