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| The globally recognizable star N!xau sells with his smile on this simple poster for Jamie Uys' The Gods Must Be Crazy II |
Bushman Xi's two children get caught in a truck carrying elephants' tusks; meanwhile two white people fool around in the African savanna with a glider plane, and some soldiers fight.
The Gods Must Be Crazy II is written and directed by great South-African filmmaker Jamie Uys (Daar Doer in die Bosveld (1951)), who follows up his enormous hit The Gods Must Be Crazy with it, clearly trying to emulate the magic that the original film created.
The animals, - when they are not puppets, - and the awfully cute children are the most vibrant elements in this sequel, which is generally a morass. The stunt effects are mostly defined by ambitious aims that are not redeemed. The narrative is fumbled and seems pointless; the white couple is especially trying to watch, as neither have the real charisma or chemistry that was apparent between the similar couple in the first film, and both are (again) dubbed, which only heightens the artificial feeling of their questionable ordeals.
We are missing the one really hilarious character in The Gods Must Be Crazy II: N!xau from the poster above is hardly in the film, and the adventure is hardly original either. It is a glaring example of a commercially mandated sequel that lacks almost everything that made the original stand out.
Related post:
Jamie Uys: The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) - Uys' border-defying Kalahari desert blockbuster
Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Reportedly 9.5 mil. $
= Uncertain - but likely at least a big flop
[The Gods Must Be Crazy II was released 26 July (France) and runs 98 minutes. It was shot in South Africa in 1985 and shelved for 4 years before getting its release, a testament to the filmmakers' knowledge that the original film was far superior. It opened #14 to a 1.1 mil. $ first weekend in 321 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #6 and grossed 6.2 mil. $ (65.3 % of the total gross). If made on a small budget of 5 mil. $, - equal to its predecessor's, - the film would rank as a big flop. But if made on the usually elevated budget of a sequel, say 10 mil. $, it would rank as a huge flop. Uys produced another film in 1992 (Adventures in Africa) but otherwise retired from filmmaking after The Gods Must Be Crazy II. N!xau (The Gods Must Be Crazy) returned in Crazy Safari (1991) and two more unofficial sequels to the Gods Must Be Crazy movies. The Gods Must Be Crazy II is rotten at 54 % with a 4.94/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Gods Must Be Crazy II?
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