Meatballs Part II must have pissed someone off – namely, everybody who watched it. Apart from its general sin of being terrible, it didn’t even have anything to do with the original Meatballs. Since the sequel box had now been opened, the best thing underhanded producers could do was put together an authentic sequel, actually relating to the first film. It would still be terrible, if IMDb scores are anything to go by, but at least it would be terrible for different reasons.
What kind of story could be told as a follow up to Meatballs? Well, I haven’t seen this damn movie, as it seems wise video distributors have opted to rid the Earth of the blight that is Meatballs III: The Summer Job. (I guess this is gonna be a short write up, then.) Anyway, without the actual movie for reference, I turn to the next best source: Wikipedia. According to their three-sentence plot summary (you can sense the love for this cinematic abortion just oozing from the Internet), the story goes as follows: “When porn star Roxy Doujor is denied entrance into the afterlife, she is given one last chance to help some poor soul on Earth.” Oh my! I very nearly spat water all over my computer!
Clearly, this appears to be echoing those eighties sex comedies. Its R-rating bears that out. Too bad I couldn’t see this, for there would certainly be nipples, something I can’t find anyplace else in this day and age.
Okay, okay, enough about tits and undead pornography starlets reenacting late night cable versions of It’s a Wonderful Life, just how does this sub-National Lampoon title relate back to the almighty Meatballs? I mean, Bill Murray wouldn’t touch this with…something long (he didn’t temporarily lose his dignity until sometime in the nineties). Besides, Bill was on a forced four-year sabbatical around 1986, meaning even Ghostbusters II had to hold off. Despite the fact that Bill Murray’s Tripper was the one really worthwhile thing about Meatballs, let’s go ahead and use a different character instead. How about Rudy? You know, that shy preteen Tripper took under his wing, the kid who won Camp North Star their first Olympiad title in twelve years? Sure, why not, let’s use him.
So what’s little Rudy up to these days? Trying to lose his virginity, apparently, which is very much not the sort of thing you feel like seeing when watching the original. Okay, so they just took the most standard sex comedy premise ever (this one’s been around since Aeschylus), and slapped on the name of a minor character from a seven-year-old movie that was made by a different movie studio. How could they fail?
Well, for one thing, Meatballs III doesn’t even take place at camp. That seems like a pretty egregious error. I mean, how hard is it to mess up that detail? That’s like a Friday the 13th taking place in space…Oh wait. Instead, Meatballs III takes place at a marina. Fine, okay. Naturally, it’s Tripper’s marina, but more naturally Tripper is nowhere to be seen, as even the bottom-scrapers who put together Meatballs III wouldn’t dare recasting someone else as Bill Murray.
Who were those bottom-scrapers? The director was George Mendeluk, who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. The distributor was something called Moviestar Entertainment. Man, this is the kind of crap information I work with when the movie isn’t available. I promise I’ll stop reviewing individual movies without watching them from now on.
So, Rudy wants to lose his virginity, and Rudy is played by Patrick Dempsey – that’s right, McDreamy is in dire trouble of forever remaining a virgin…Sure, guys. His porn star guardian angel Roxy (Sally “Hot Lips” Kellerman, Oscar nominee) has to help Rudy with this “problem” in order to be allowed into Heaven, or some such thing. But since she’s now incorporeal (and, like, fifty), Rudy’s gonna have to make it with some other girl. Apparently the majority of the movie is a series of disconnected shenanigans with various anonymous girls who are unreceptive to Rudy’s charms.
Really, I’m attempting to piece this all together from various contradictory Internet sources. Not even the official Meatballs website has anything to say about this. The one plot summary I can find (apart from Wikipedia’s) makes absolutely no sense to me – probably because the movie itself makes no sense. It sounds like there’s something to do with wet t-shirts, and throwing people through the wall, and a bull named Adonis who may or may not perform in a Tiajuana revue. Also, this movie stars Shannon Tweed as “the Love Goddess.” It’s also the cinematic debut of Caroline Rhea as “Beach Girl #4.”
There’s little else I can think of to say. I’m afraid Meatballs III is forever lost to the shrouds of time, the victim of Patrick Dempsey’s desire that no one ever see it again. Turning in the towel, I’d like to finish this non-starter of a review with at least a pithy comment, but I think I’m just gonna hafta go and slam my face on the keyboard instead…
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Related posts:
• No. 1 Meatballs (1979)
• No. 2 Meatballs 2 (1984)
• No. 4 Meatballs 4 (1992)
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