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bobafett_ski
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Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! (1989)
Not a good movie, man.
An example of how not to do a sequel man.
Its obvious that this script was thrown together at the last minute man. The dialogue is laughable man, and the direction is as well man.
The original had some depth to it and a dark, mysterious aura. The sequel, not so much.
The storyline is ridiculous. It takes place right where the first one left off. Eddie (or Joe if you will), who resides in Canada, still has his musical passion but is afraid of revealing himself as the true Eddie Wilson. To make matters worse, the last album he recorded has been released 20 years after he 'died', and Eddie Wilson is once again a hot topic in the music world. Eddie ends up in a bar one night and runs into some musicians, a sax player who reminds him of Wendell from the first movie, and a young (and highly annoying) guitarist. Eddie compliments the sax player and criticizes the guitarist and thus begins the makings of a new band. For some reason the next half hour of the movie is basically the young guitarist stalking and harassing Eddie about becoming a better musician. It's laughable how the kid always knows where Eddie is. He somehow knows he is a construction worker and at what site he is working. He knows he is at an art show with the boring love interest. He knows Eddie is at a roller skating rink, and so on. The scripted dialogue between the two goes something like this, "Hey man, leave me alone." "Come on man, I wanna learn." They eventually put a band together, but Eddie never believes they are ready to perform. "Come on man, we want to play." "No! We aren't ready man." After another half hour of bickering, the sax player (a Billy Dee Williams clone by the way) finally reveals he knows who Eddie is. This of course brings the band closer and Eddie caves in about performing.
After all the build up of the great Eddie Wilson throughout the film, the big reveal at the end is less than climactic.
The only hold over character from the first movie is Sal. I guess all the others knew better. There is a secondary story about a 'mystery' tape with Eddie performing on it, but surprisingly, it isn't needed.
The music is okay. It does take up half of the movie (it helps alleviate the pain of the dialogue man) and I really liked the song played during the opening credits.
Stick with the original, unless you really need a sip of nostalgia.