A Retread of a Snippy War

When it came out, 1993's Grumpy Old Men was a modest hit. Not great in comparison to other Christmas time blockbusters released that decade, such as the absolutely monster of Home Alone, but a decent enough performer to bring in its studio, Warner Bros., a tidy little profit. And while it was only a mild performer in theaters, it did pretty well on home video after (as the 1995s were the prime era of home video sales). A film like that absolutely warrants a sequel, from a corporate perspective... I'm just not certain the story really needed a follow up.

As I noted in my review of the first film, people loved the pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. They starred in ten films together of a span of three-plus decades, and they were a legitimate smash duo in 1968's The Odd Couple. There were people that wanted to see these guys played grumpy friends over and over again. But that's not enough to hang a film upon, and the issue that Grumpier Old Men has is that the creatives behind the film didn't have any major ideas beyond, "well, they're probably still grumpy." You need more reasoning than that to make a sequel.

Grumpier Old Men, though, didn't have anything else. In much the same way that 1992's Home Alone 2 retread all the basic plot points of Home Alone from two years prior, Christmas 1995's Grumpier Old Men is functionally a retread of it's two year prior predecessor. It's almost like we traded an annoying little moppet for two obnoxious adults in theaters around the holidays, to basically the same results.

Picking up six months after the events of the first film, Grumpier Old Men finds John Gustafson Jr. (Lemmon) and Max Goldman (Matthau) in a kind of peaceable friendship. They still harass each other, and play pranks back and forth, but it's all in a good natured way. They made peace, their kids, Jacob (Kevin Pollak) and Melanie (Daryl Hannah), are getting married, and Max is no longer jealous that John ended up with Ariel (Ann-Margret).

But then in walks the skirt: Maria Sophia Coletta Ragetti (Sophia Loren). Max is instantly attracted to her, which isn't a big deal, but then she reveals that she's taking the old bait shop (a Wabasha, Minnesota institution) and turning it into an Italian restaurant. This riles the two old men to no end, so they team up to try and sabotage Maria's plans. Meanwhile, the stress of getting the marriage arranged, with their parents constantly butting in, causes Jacob and Melanie to call the whole thing off. Grumpy about losing one fight, the two men go back to the war between them. This leads Ariel to storm out, and puts John in a worse mood than he already was. Can the two old men find it in their hearts to forgive again? And can they win (back) their women as well?

If you've seen the first film (which I have to assume you have because, otherwise, why are you watching this sequel) then most everything I described above should sound eerily familiar. Max and John fought over a woman in the first film, and they kind of fight over a new woman here. John makes a mess of things with Ariel in the first movie, and then does it again here. Max takes the place of John when it comes to courting the new lady in town, but the results (right down to a quick marriage at the end) are the same. Hell, the two men spend all their time fishing this film as well, just like in the first movie, except its on boats instead of ice fishing. You really could layer these two scripts on top of each other and see the basic plot beats paralleling scene by scene.

What worked in the first film still works here, of course. The friendly camaraderie between Lemmon and Matthau was still alive here, with the two men able to play grumpy friendship as well as any two men could. That, plus the rambling, comedic stylings of Burgess Meredith, made for a mildly amusing, if not laugh-out-loud, comedy. But there are very obvious strains in the film as well, that become apparently on any kind of second viewing.

For starters, this film really doesn't have much to say that's new about the main characters. The first film was about these two old friend who became life-long enemies finding a way to become friends again. They're friends at the start of this film, so all the movie can really do is make them enemies to then have them become friends again. By a similar measure, John messes things up with Ariel, but that's only so they can make up and get back together again. Hell, even Jacob and Melanie have to fall apart so they can get right back to where they were by film's end. Any issue that arises is just a bump in the road that can otherwise get brushed off as the film brings us back to neutral.

Even the one plot thread that would force some kind of change, Max and Maria, barely registers at all. Max doesn't really change for Maria in any meaningful way. He's an old codger who likes things the way they are. The ways that he bonds with Maria, such as over fishing and shitty food, were things he was already doing before. She doesn't change either, temporarily breaking things off with him because she'd been married before and felt she was "cursed", but then a mild two-minute speech from Max gets them back together with minimal fuss. It's the most low-stakes courtship in the history of cinema.

Really, even the stuff that works isn't that great, for various reasons. Because there's only so much that can be done with their two characters in this film, the easy chemistry of Lemmon and Matthau doesn't spark a ton of humor. The two genially calling each other "moron" and "putz" is good for a smile at the start of the film, but it hardly elicits laughs. And while I thought Burgess Meredith's lines could still be amusing, his performance feels off. That's, of course, because the actor (who was 95 at the time) was showing signs of Alzheimers and had to be coached through his lines. It's sad, and feels a little ghastly to trot him back out for this, all things considered.

At the end of the day, it's hard to really want to watch this sequel. I was fine with the film while watching, chuckling occasionally and smiling at times. But I didn't really care about what was going on, not even in comparison to how little I cared during the first film. It's a mild, sometimes amusing, retread of the first film that lacks anything real or new to say. I guess if you really liked the first film and absolutely had to have more of these two grumpy gusses then, sure, this film delivers. At this point, though, I have to question how big that target audience really might be.