Caddyshack II

Rita Kempley started her review by saying, “"Caddyshack II," a feeble follow-up to the 1980 laff riot, is lamer than a duck with bunions, and dumber than grubs. It's patronizing and clumsily manipulative, and top banana Jackie Mason is upstaged by the gopher puppet.”

Jackie Mason, looking gentle and miserable, replaces the irreplaceable Rodney Dangerfield as the cultural hero in loud golf pants. Mason plays a self-made Armenian millionaire who tries to get into the Bushwood Country Club to please his social-climbing daughter, played by Jessica Lundy. Naturally he is ridiculed by the arrogant members.

He avenges himself by purchasing Bushwood to turn it into a messy golf theme park open to the public. “I want to make sure that everyone has a taste of the good life,” says the tycoon. Kempley said, “Led by their snooty president (Robert Stack), the club members are determined to destroy the tee-totaler. But fear not, working-class audience members, blue blood will be spilt yet -- in a winner-take-Bushwood golf match between the antagonists.”

Kempley continued, “Peter Torokvei and "Caddyshack" writer Harold Ramis are just a couple of hackers with typewriters. They pillage the original right down to a gung-ho psycho (Dan Aykroyd instead of Bill Murray) who becomes obsessed with the Twinkie-loving gopher puppet. Aykroyd has never been so awful, his ineptitude eclipsed only by the director Allan Arkush's.”

The adorable rodent, love interest Dyan Cannon’s front muscles and Randy Quaid’s terrific work as a sick are the movie’s only pros. Mason does get off an occasional punch line. When advised by a Zen golfer, played by Chevy Chase in a cameo, to “be the ball,” he rejoins, “IF I wanted to be a piece of sports equipment, I’d be a lady’s bicycle seat.”

And “Caddyshack II,” released in 1988, viewers would as soon be golf clubs in an electrical storm.

As everyone might have guessed, this is one of the worst sequels ever made. Everything that made the first one a comedy classic is destroyed in this heartless sequel. If you loved the first movie, then avoid this one at all cost. You will loathe this, especially since no one, except for Chase, returns in this sequel. Nothing about this sequel is likable.

Sorry for posting this really late. I was really tired after work. However, stay tuned next week when I talk about a movie that I saw a little bit of as a kid in the finale of “Chevy Chase Month.”