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Released By: Olive Films
Released On: September 22, 2015
Director: Stewart Raffill
Cast: Kristy Swanson, William Ragsdale, Meshach Taylor, Terry Kiser
Year: 1991
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The Movie:
Sometimes I wonder about things. Like, for example, how a movie like Mannequin Two: On The Move gets made. Why, I ask myself, would a film as horrible as Mannequin, which got ripped to shreds by just about everyone, deserve a sequel? Sure, the first film is a "cult classic" now, but by and large, cult classic these days just means a bad, bad movie. Well, after a little digging, I can reveal the answer; money. Despite being regarded as garbage, the original Mannequin brought in roughly seven times its budget. So why not take a giant dump on the filmmaking industry and crap out a sequel?
And what a dump it is. Opening roughly a thousand years in the past, Prince William of the Hauptmann-Koenig Kingdom has fallen in love with a simple peasant girl (Kristy Swanson), much to the ire of the Queen Mother. Realizing that she can't do much to sway her son from following his heart, she has her Sorcerer whip up a wedding gift for the young commoner, a jewelled necklace of gold snakes. Though she initially balks at the notion of accepting the gift, the hopeful bride-to-be allows it to be placed around her neck, which puts a freezing curse on her; turning her into a statue for 1,000 years, or until she finds true love.
Flash forward to present-day (well, 1991 present day) Philadelphia, where Jason Williamson (William Ragsdale), looking very much like the Prince, is starting a new job at...get this...the Prince and Company Department Store. Arriving at the very moment that another employee is fired for insubordination, Jason is immediately placed in an important position with the ridiculously flamboyant Hollywood Montrose, the store choreographer for an upcoming important event. It turns out that Prince and Company are putting together a display for the mannequin known as "Enchanted Peasant Girl", on loan from the Hauptmann-Koenig Kingdom, and Jason and Hollywood are in charge of impressing the representative from the Kingdom, Count Spretzle...who looks an awful lot like the Queen's Sorcerer. He IS, in fact, the great great great great something something something grandson of the original Sorcerer, he's aware that the lovely peasant girl's curse is just about due to be lifted and plans to get him some peasant girl action when it does, and he's also aware that Jason looks an awful lot like he could have been Prince William in a past life.
While dressing the Enchanted Peasant Girl for the show, Jason removes the necklace, and...you guessed it..."Jessie" comes to life in front of his eyes. Let the high comedy begin as Jessie can't believe that she's in the future, asking for things like "Boiled Weasel" and aspiring to herd sheep, but then overcomes her surprise to get down to serious business; like wearing miniskirts and leather jackets, putting on makeup, going to nightclubs, and eating cheesesteaks. While the fun times seem like they could last a lifetime, Jason and Jessie have an evil Count and his three henchmen to deal with, and of course, nobody believes Jason that the mannequin is a real girl, as she inconveniently manages to end up with her curse necklace on at the most inopportune times. With a boss breathing down his neck to make sure that the Hauptmann-Koenig Kingdom is impressed with Prince and Company for some reason, and Hollywood Montrose and a super-hip rap as his only defense, things don't look too good for Jason, and it'll take some kind of magic blargh blargh blah true love vomit.
What does Mannequin Two: On The Move have going for it? Well, Kristy Swanson is wayyyy damn hotter than Kim Cattrall, for one. Sadly, watching her strut around in a miniskirt is probably the high point of the film, and I say that with no chauvinist intent whatsoever. Oh, and William Ragsdale is pretty awesome too, but only because if you go in unaware, the fact that he's Fright Night's Charlie Brewster with the most bitchen preppy haircut to ever be put to celluloid will probably make you snort really loudly when you realize it. Uh...Stewart Raffill directed it, so if you're a fan of Mac & Me, this might be the movie for you. That Starship Song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" that got a nod from the Academy in the first film is back...
Well, hell. Mannequin Two really doesn't have that much going for it at all, does it? The majority of the film tries to be laugh-worthy based on sight gags and other physical comedy that just aren't funny, ever, and the pacing of the film, the editing, is like a really bad Disney movie. It looks like an attempt at an 80's comedy film, when you could get away with flashy colours and a hip song...probably like the original Mannequin...but it's already 1991 and nobody got the memo to stop doing this kind of thing. Obviously, nobody is expecting much in the way of reality when it comes to a movie about a mannequin coming to life, but stupid things happen for no reason at bizarre times, like the writers had a few different ideas about comedic things that could happen in such a situation, and they just threw them in together with no thought.
It's just bad. There's no reason for this film to have been made, and here it is on Blu-ray. It's not even so bad it's good. It's just bad. Bad.
Bad.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Mannequin Two comes to blu-ray from Olive films in a 1.78:1 transfer that looks pretty good. Though there are some slight instances of film ugliness here and there, the picture is largely clean, with solid blacks and a good range of colours. Lines are sharp, detail is pretty crisp for the most part (though some scenes are a little soft), and there's not much in the way of artifacts to speak of.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is about the same and what one has come to expect from Olive....stereo and lossless with a decent representation of the soundstage. Dialogue is consistently audible with no drops or other issues, and it's balanced nicely with the rest of the soundtrack, including that Starship song and that hip rap I was talking about earlier.
If you count a menu as an extra feature, that's it...no trailer, no subtitles. Barebones.
The Final Word:
I have on occasion been told rather sternly that one man's trash is indeed another man's treasure, so I will say that if this is your idea of a treasure, the Olive disc offers a nice representation of the film, barebones though it is. And that is about the only nice thing I will say about Mannequin Two: On The Move, except for that thing I said about Kristy Swanson. Also, my parents took me to see Mac & Me in the theatre, and even as a 13 year-old I knew it was a piece of garbage, so I feel qualified to rip on it, though I did think that The Philadelphia Experiment was pretty keen.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
