When I saw that Hulu was bankrolling the long awaited sequel that wasn’t really supposed to happen, it was part of the joke, I was excited. After watching a few, I couldn’t finish this Part 2 because it was sadly uneven and I’ve grown into an old-guy fan of accurate History; blatant inaccuracies annoy me. Too many movies trying to cover these subject matters make people dumber, now musicals as well. A super sad example, worse than the shitty ‘musical’ Hamilton, even the younger people of Uganda believe The King of Scotland is spot on about the terrors of Idi Amin.
Then the film to inspire it all popped up on Hulu! I was stoked! I hadn’t seen it since I was a freshman in high school. I remember clearly watching it on HBO with my brother and dad on our portable color TV in Houston circa 1982. We still giggled and laughed despite friends and classmates having already quoted the best parts to death on the playground while it was in theaters the previous Summer.
What was I thinking? Oh, I was 13 would be my excuse and today I have to say Siskel & Ebert were right to give this a thumbs down. Theater? No. Cable? Sure. I now understand what their gripes were, Brooks’ approach of shotgunning jokes is great but he didn’t really put this through enough workshops (of his peers) to find out what worked, especially after the Roman Empire material. Many bits are lowbrow even by Mel’s standards, namely the French Revolution part. As always, much didn’t age well given society’s improved mindset about homosexuals which I expect but the bit involving the chess pieces, gross.
I doubt Mel will be cancelled over this resurfacing to a wider audience. This same audience which will get its collective undies in a knot won’t watch anyway. I doubt they have any clue what the movie is parodying. Hell, when History was released in 1981, the majority of the then modern audience didn’t know about Hollywood’s love of Bible/History Epics made in the Fifties and Sixties. So its point went over many heads as either another crass comedy or collection of dirty jokes to requote on the playground or water color.