Writer/director Jamie Uys waited five years to create his follow-up to 1980’s surprise South African sleeper hit The Gods Must Be Crazy. That’s a little late for a cash-grab sequel. Exacerbating issues, the thing wasn’t even released until 1989. Yup, it took nine years for The Gods Must Be Crazy II (which may as well have been titled The Gods Must Still Be Crazy or, better yet, Animal Reaction Shot: The Movie) to see actual distribution, one whole Reagan administration later. It’s safe to say that now, whatever market there was for a sequel is long gone. For TGMBCII (I just love these abbreviations) to have any hope, it has to be a great sequel, one of the greatest ever made. It has to be the Aliens of South African bushman comedies.
It is not.
TGMBC (the first one) leaves no obvious path for a sequel to take, meaning the chances for a carbon copy remake-as-sequel are very high. I mean, it was a self-contained satire of man vs. nature, with a little token South African cultural insensitivity thrown in for good measure. Satirical point having been made, what’s left to do?
Who else is back, apart from Uys? Well, the guy who doesn’t understand modern actor contracts or the notion of indentured cinematic servitude – Namibian hunter-gather-actor N!xau, whose name becomes incredibly exciting 2/5ths of the way through, again playing bushman Xi…though he’s renamed Xixo here, resembling the final scrawl on a love letter.
Anyway, with him back, I guess we could switch up the first film’s formula, go bigger, you know, and send the noble savage all the way into the big city. You know, where the original’s satire could be elaborated upon? We could do that, or we could just make another bush-set comic romp, where the premise of the first is diluted. Yeah, we’ll do that one! And we’ll devise parallels for each of the original’s plot points – Ah, repetition as sequel.
So that means the emphasis is now entirely upon slapstick – which to be honest this series does well. In fact, TGMBCII manages to improve the 20s-style physical shenanigans. Uys’s comic timing has improved, and his approach is now more Keaton and less Keystone. (That means no more sped-up car chase komedy.) Many, many individual sections of TGMBCII could be isolated as perfect comedy shorts.
Adding to that improvement, TGMBCII is simply a better made film, technically. Gone is the homemade sheen (and charm), replaced by the same competent but underwhelming cinematography of most professionally-made 80s films. Indeed, the change here is this movie seems professional. That doesn’t fix a surfeit of inspiration or purpose, sadly, but merely helps to point out the conceptual deficiencies in the new flick.
Oh, and the editing is atrocious. Honestly, about 90% of the scenes are about 15 seconds long (a challenge of having too many subplots), when simply sticking to one scene a bit longer (and dropping the running time overall by about 15 minutes) would make a far superior film. I think it could still be salvaged. No matter…
We start, as always, with Xixo (nee Xi) bushmanning it up in his isolated Kalahari village, as a narrator lets us know in no uncertain terms he and his people are better than we are. Xixo had kids before, but now they’re important (ugh! – kids in sequels), so let’s meet ‘em, shall we? They are Xiri and Xisa (I sense confusion imminent), whose genders are indeterminate and whose cuteness is cloying. I shall just call them “the kids.”
The plot isn’t gonna start itself, so whilst hunting with Xixo, his brood happen upon a parked poachers’ truck, towing a water tanker on its rear. They examine this unusual form, as the movie thoroughly refuses to do the same sort of “bushmen think cars are animals” “humor” that made up 93.27% of TGMBC. They’re in the truck’s rear, lamenting the recently-poached elephant tusks – which somehow translates to white guilt – when the poachers awake and drive off. Thus the kids are accidentally trapped, as Xixo pursues on foot to rescue them.
This is one entire subplot of TGMBCII, which I’ll just relate in whole right now. Otherwise, we’d have like six whole paragraphs of nothing but “Xixo runs,” and we don’t want that now, do we?
Anyway, Xixo runs, which is all he does in this movie, basically. This is our headlining star here. Of course, the film’s unerring refusal to badmouth the bushmen (it paints them as sinless Na’vi, essentially) means no humor can come from Xixo’s journey. Noooo, he’s a serious guy! With, like, respect for all living things and a deep worldview and Oh God I’m so sorry I was born a Caucasian!
But as the film progresses, and grows more fully devoted to pure physical wackiness (which can exist independent of positive cultural stereotypes), this truck chase does a wonderful thing: It starts to resemble The General (1927, and one of my favorite films). By that I mean one kid tumbles off, then another, then the truck itself backtracks for unrelated reasons (having to do with comic incompetency), and soon four separate parties are struggling to keep track of each other, even while they’re all traveling on the same straight line. Then hyenas get involved. It’s a comic balancing act, though a mere shadow of the buffoonery the other subplots have in store.
Meet NY Doctor of Corporate Law Anne Taylor (Lena Farugia), who can be summed up in one statement: Jamie Uys must’ve seen Temple of Doom. That is, she’s Willie Scott – da dum dum! Anne is, initially, a vessel for all the worst assumptions about civilization and womanhood, squeezed into one ridiculous pink 80s dress. She’s career-minded in the worst sort of way, obsessed with appearance, unaccustomed to even a lesser 4-star hotel. Who wants to guess she’ll get stranded out in the Kalahari? And who wants to guess she’ll largely redeem herself with a character arc?
She’s basically our stand-in for Kate from the first…in some ways better, in others worse. Kate had altruistic reasons for going to the bush, but she had no personality. Anne, though, goes from hateful to fairly competent over the story, though – it’s progress, I guess.
The other side of the equation is our Andrew stand-in, Dr. (of what?) Stephen Marshall (Hans Strydom). Sadly losing Marius Weyers’ gifted physical comedy from the first, Stephen is simply…Did Crocodile Dundee exist yet in 1985? (No, ’86.) Whatever, Stephen’s some sort of under-mustachioed Tom Selleck lookalike he-man, whose function is almost entirely to act as a foil to Anne. When her foil isn’t Xixo…Or the other guys we haven’t met yet. Yeah, Stephen ain’t too useful.
Xixo runs.
Their Kalahari misadventure starts when Stephen takes Anne sightseeing in an ultralight aircraft for no reason mere hours before she is to give a conference on some nebulous subject. (Actually, some other guy named Jack – but not the Jack from the first – first takes Anne out, for as little difference as it makes – A friend needed a role?) Anyway, a nearing storm transforms Stephen’s crazy little airplane into a model so it can thrash around some Godzilla jungle sets for a bit. The plane crashes, gets caught up in, like, the Tree of Life, and thus Anne and Stephen are predictably stranded.
About that plane – It too is a stand-in, for the Land Rover from before (hence it has the most personality of anyone). Trading a car for plane is a good uptick, sequel-wise, though it isn’t quite as hilariously user-unfriendly. Still, Uys sees the comic potential unique to a plane, and largely makes use of it.
The first step is to get the plane out of the tree, piece-by-piece. This necessitates a rope and pulley system, which in turn leads to the be-underwearing of Anne (it is a series running gag to repeatedly expose the lead actress’ underpants). Another series running gag seems to be incredibly fake-looking rhinoceroses, one of which chases Anne up a different tree, effectively recreating a scene from Disneyland’s “Jungle Cruise.” Hyenas laugh; giraffes gawk; monkeys look on thoughtfully (missed opportunity: no trios of sinless primates). Seriously, cut out the animal reactions, you’d have a film 3/4ths as long.
Xixo runs.
Back at the Anne and Stephen follies, Anne crossdresses Bugs Bunny style in order to draw a horny ostrich away from its eggs. This allows Stephen to poach said eggs. Then he builds a campfire, and poaches the eggs in an entirely different way. The ostrich remains sexually unfulfilled.
Having exhausted the current setting for its humor value, the duo lugs the airplane through the desert towards the flats (Anne serving as mule – ha!). Then a…a badger or a feral skunk or a Pokémon or something attacks Stephen’s shoe. Stephen must therefore doff his boot, which remains in a life-or-death struggle with the badger, as they continue on.
The plane launch shall not be graceful, since the badger also deflated its tires. Following the cartoon logic which dictates his life, Stephen removes the fuselage’s flooring, to get the craft up to speed in the manner of Fred Flintstone. No points for guessing he tumbles out, leaving Anne alone in this out-of-control flying deathtrap. In the chaos, the plane is fired at by a random army garrison that’ll never be seen again – Ah, Africa. Then it tumbles back to earth, parachute tangling up in a different Tree of Life. Then a cheetah rushes at Anne, the plane spins around in circles, and it doesn’t prosper. Really, this movie goes pretty nuts sometimes.
Xixo runs. It’s a running joke!
Left alone at the flats, Stephen tries to retrieve his boot, leading to an extended comic conflict with the same bloodthirsty badger. It’s another of those individual moments of silliness which serves little overall purpose, but remains the point of this exercise. And Stephen is only able to coax himself free of the little beastie with a potent combination of eggs and beer (survival essentials).
The time has come, believe it or not, for another subplot to get introduced. Because cutting between the travails of Anne, Stephen, Xixo and the kids isn’t enough for Mr. 15-Second Scene Editor here. So out here in the Kalahari, the most crowded desert on Earth it seems, a Cuban soldier (Eric Bowen) and an Angolan soldier (the exquisitely-named Treasure Tshabalala) engage each other in an inexplicable, context-free comedy of blunders, as each tries to take the other prisoner. It’s sort of a stand-in for the lame terrorist subplot from TGMBC, only with better humor. It still makes buggerall sense, though.
Xixo ru– Actually, he stops to silently comprehend the soldiers’ struggles, in the same manner as the endless apes they usually cut away to. Unimpressed, Xixo runs.
Presumably this has to do with the Angolan Civil War, even though the movie takes place in Botswana. Hey, wait up! Is this satire here?! Indeed, the Tom & Jerry relationship between the Cuban and Angolan soldier is meant as a summation of the war as a whole. With head-clonking. Jamie Uys is no Stanley Kubrick, I tell you what.
Anne, in her travels to rediscover Stephen (why?!) happens upon a metal windmill way the hell out here in the wastelands. What follows is a nicely evolving silent comedy routine – one of the more fully Keatonesque moments in the film. She finds when she turns the blades, water escapes from a pipe below; when she reaches the pipe, the water has stopped. That’s our setup. Anne tries catching the water in a can, but it tumbles over. She props the can up with a rock, but a monkey steals it. Correcting for that monkey, several more show up. Anne plans to pelt them all with several rocks, so they gang rape her…Actually, no. Rather, the wind blows and Anne does a sexy shower dance for the animals – Okay, what’s going on here?!
Xixo runs – through a giraffe’s legs!
Now Anne happens upon revolutionary and counter-revolutionary, engaging their warfare through buffoonery. This is where Anne’s competence truly shines, making me forget all about the shrieking harridan from the beginning. She collects a rifle, another has a pistol, and the third has the fuel (for jeeps and planes and such). It all plays out, with insistent cutaways every quarter minute, like a silly version of a John Woo standoff. Also, Xixo is there, doing nothing.
And what of Stephen, who’s served very little purpose since Anne went off on her own? Well, he’s been bitten by a deadly scorpion (it’s a comedy – laugh). So Stephen’s dying. He’s soon visited by Xixo, who seems to have forgotten his own truck-chasing story (oh yeah!). Xixo, the wise and infinitely superior non-white, knows the only cure for a scorpion bite: Bury a dude in sand! It might make some sort of sense, but more importantly, it’s a humorous image.
Around now those villainous poachers come barreling back into the picture, to provide some Third Act wickedness so it can seem like something’s been overcome. Thus the poachers decide to take everybody hostage, on the off chance they “saw our ivory.” ‘Cause five people stranded in the desert, head-clonking each other, are that much of a threat. Most are bound two-by-two, back-to-back – lovebirds Anne and Stephen together, likewise “lovebirds” Cuban and Angolan. Xixo is there too.
Because competency is the rarest commodity in the TGMBC franchise, the poachers affect their prisoners’ escape. One leaves to go make a radio call, while the other fool loses his pistol down his own pants (!). Everyone else flees, in yet another moment of inspired physical comedy – a slapstick foot chase with lashed couples trading turns carrying the other. Description is insufficient.
The other poacher starts a wildfire. Everybody on screen and in the audience is hopeless, at a loss, except for Xixo…and myself.
DETOUR! When there is unburned fuel between you and the fire, it behooves one to reach a fuel-free safety zone with no possibility of reburn, at a sufficient distance in a 1:100 proportion relative to flame height. If such a safety zone does not exist, and no other escape route presents itself, one may create one’s own safety zone by means of a backfire.
“Backfire: A fire set along the inner edge of a fireline to consume the fuel in the path of a wildfire and/or change the direction or force of the fire’s convection column.” [The Fireline Handbook, January 1998]
A backfire can use up oxygen otherwise available to the main fire (removing one side of the Fire Triangle), causing both fires to diminish in intensity as they meet each other. It is a potentially dangerous practice, as an understanding of wind patterns is essential, but it can also save lives.
In such a way, Xixo et al survive the fire. Its dramatic purpose over, the fire simply goes out.
Then they get the best of the poachers, with the help of several chaotic neutral lions.
The soldiers make amends, realizing the silliness of the capitalist/communist debate ahead of historical schedule. They together use their Jeep to launch the airplane, as Anne and Stephen sail back to civilization just as Idi Amin, on loan from Uganda, is about to organize a search party (he’s hungry). Anne and Stephen smooch in their underpants for all to see.
And Xixo reunites with his children, crying tears of joy and relief a hundred times more genuine than any emotion a deadened urbanite could ever feel. Our lives are shallow and unnatural, this movie tells us! Cue credits.
The Gods Must Be Crazy II is the sort of sequel which is mostly useful, franchise wise, only in indicating how useless it would be to go on with the series. Its chronologically retarded release would back that up. Indeed, the premise has already been milked dryer than the Kalahari, and indeed, the South Africans were already washing their hands of their one and only nascent franchise. And yet there were three more to come. How is that? Well, The Gods Must Be Crazy II is one of the few movies of the modern era to show a debt to America’s silent comedies of the 20s. But there was another style of contemporary moviemaking with similar inspirations. Hong Kong cinema!
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
• No. 3 The Gods Must Be Crazy III (1991)
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