It's funny how for a series that take such ironic stabs on the American way of life, "Problem Child" can seem rather conservative in its advocation of family values. In the first film, it took the whole movie to set the relationship between Junior (Michael Oliver) and his father Ben (John Ritter) and in the sequel, all naturally, what is left is to find a good mother. You might think that a film like that wouldn't be busy praising family values but it surely does, though in a twisted way. But if you expect the same good-heartedness than the first, you've got another thing coming.
"Problem Child 2", directed this time by Bryan Levant, has all the characters clearly established, there's the bad kid, his good father Ben, and there's Big ben the big bad grandfather (Jack Warden). After his marriage fiasco, Ben decides to take a new start in his life and moves on to Mortville, known as the Mecca for divorced people and new celibates. Ben's goal is to find a good mother for Junior, one who'd have the perfect iron fist in a velvet glove, or with enough perspective to minimize Junior's level of nuisance. This is also where Junior finds his match in Trixie, a pint-sized girl as equally mischevious as he is and the one who doesn't want to be messed with.
Naturally, the film turns into a war of the titans between the two pranksters and the pranks escalate from the kind of Bart Simpson-like malicious tricks to the level of sadism that made me feel guilty from laughing at them. Interestingly, the film never sugarcoats its material and takes the most outrageous gags to their extreme, when Junior is asked to fill a lemonade jug from two annoying twins, it doesn't take a master's degree to figure what goes on behind that smile, but the outcome of the gag is actually funnier than the one from "Dumb and Dumber" (you know, with the cop), a same gag occurs with a cherry bomb put in Junior's hand and being flushed away to the near toilet, freshly occupied by Junior's teacher (the Strickland actor), a lesser movie would have made the explosion the punchline, but not that one, and we even get a bonus gag later where we see the teacher wearing diapers the size of pillows in the school convention.
The film finds the right angle by overplaying the gag to the extreme and giving them a cartoonish à la Simpson way, (the main bully looks like a live-action Nelson Muntz), as if it existed in a parallel universe where explosions can make a man skyrocket and land on water, when electrocution can transform you into a crossover of Morticia Addams and Alice Cooper, where a dog can be turned into a statue and leave defecations twice his size and when the rabies virus looks like something borrowed from a cheap cartoon... and last, but not least when Trixie's mother is played by Amy Yasbeck, Ritter's wife, who played the wife in the first film.
It's ridiculous but that's why it ironically works, it asks us not to take the film seriously in case some twisted mind actually thought a kid could do one tenth what Junior and Trixie die and get away with it. The cartoonish way the pranks play leave more latitude to the viewers and we start enjoying the film for no other reason than its bizarre silliness, and the enduring chemistry between Ben and Junior and perhaps Laraine Newman's rendition as a Cruella-like figure named Lawanda Dumore, the woman who can see through Junior and for some reason, decided to make Ben her husband.
It's all played for laughs, the film isn't as efficient as the first, but I guess for kids who aren't too grossed out by vulgar humor, it'll go. Far before the Sandlot and after "Stand By me", we have the vomit scene that made us crack a lot as kids and even know it kinds of take a few chuckles from me, but I reckon I had to turn my eyes when the cockroaches salad started. I just hate cockroaches.
Now, is the film as good as the original? It doesn't matter, it's notable that this is one of John Ritter's most known roles and that if it wasn't for his gentleness and the way it irradiates on his child's behavior, the film wouldn't have aged as well.
And I still enjoying it with my a great deal of nostalgic indulence... see, in 1991, we had two film using of the "Bad to the Bone" riff, "Terminator 2" and "Problem Child 2". If you were a child in the early 90s, that was one tune you couldn't miss.
"Problem Child 2", directed this time by Bryan Levant, has all the characters clearly established, there's the bad kid, his good father Ben, and there's Big ben the big bad grandfather (Jack Warden). After his marriage fiasco, Ben decides to take a new start in his life and moves on to Mortville, known as the Mecca for divorced people and new celibates. Ben's goal is to find a good mother for Junior, one who'd have the perfect iron fist in a velvet glove, or with enough perspective to minimize Junior's level of nuisance. This is also where Junior finds his match in Trixie, a pint-sized girl as equally mischevious as he is and the one who doesn't want to be messed with.
Naturally, the film turns into a war of the titans between the two pranksters and the pranks escalate from the kind of Bart Simpson-like malicious tricks to the level of sadism that made me feel guilty from laughing at them. Interestingly, the film never sugarcoats its material and takes the most outrageous gags to their extreme, when Junior is asked to fill a lemonade jug from two annoying twins, it doesn't take a master's degree to figure what goes on behind that smile, but the outcome of the gag is actually funnier than the one from "Dumb and Dumber" (you know, with the cop), a same gag occurs with a cherry bomb put in Junior's hand and being flushed away to the near toilet, freshly occupied by Junior's teacher (the Strickland actor), a lesser movie would have made the explosion the punchline, but not that one, and we even get a bonus gag later where we see the teacher wearing diapers the size of pillows in the school convention.
The film finds the right angle by overplaying the gag to the extreme and giving them a cartoonish à la Simpson way, (the main bully looks like a live-action Nelson Muntz), as if it existed in a parallel universe where explosions can make a man skyrocket and land on water, when electrocution can transform you into a crossover of Morticia Addams and Alice Cooper, where a dog can be turned into a statue and leave defecations twice his size and when the rabies virus looks like something borrowed from a cheap cartoon... and last, but not least when Trixie's mother is played by Amy Yasbeck, Ritter's wife, who played the wife in the first film.
It's ridiculous but that's why it ironically works, it asks us not to take the film seriously in case some twisted mind actually thought a kid could do one tenth what Junior and Trixie die and get away with it. The cartoonish way the pranks play leave more latitude to the viewers and we start enjoying the film for no other reason than its bizarre silliness, and the enduring chemistry between Ben and Junior and perhaps Laraine Newman's rendition as a Cruella-like figure named Lawanda Dumore, the woman who can see through Junior and for some reason, decided to make Ben her husband.
It's all played for laughs, the film isn't as efficient as the first, but I guess for kids who aren't too grossed out by vulgar humor, it'll go. Far before the Sandlot and after "Stand By me", we have the vomit scene that made us crack a lot as kids and even know it kinds of take a few chuckles from me, but I reckon I had to turn my eyes when the cockroaches salad started. I just hate cockroaches.
Now, is the film as good as the original? It doesn't matter, it's notable that this is one of John Ritter's most known roles and that if it wasn't for his gentleness and the way it irradiates on his child's behavior, the film wouldn't have aged as well.
And I still enjoying it with my a great deal of nostalgic indulence... see, in 1991, we had two film using of the "Bad to the Bone" riff, "Terminator 2" and "Problem Child 2". If you were a child in the early 90s, that was one tune you couldn't miss.