Wayne's World 2 (1993) |
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Wayne's World 2 (1993) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Interviews-Cast & Crew Audio Commentary-Stephen Surjik (Director) |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1993 | ||
| Running Time | 90:44 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (44:35) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Stephen Surjik |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Paramount Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Mike Myers Dana Carvey Christopher Walken Tia Carrere Ralph Brown |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Carter Burwell |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0  (224Kb/s)Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
German English Spanish French Hebrew Croatian Italian Portuguese Slovenian English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | Yes, more funny than annoying | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes | ||
It is not usually possible to make a decent 90 minute movie out of a short television comedy skit, but Mike Myers has managed to do it not once, but twice.
In Wayne's World 2, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey and Tia Carrere reprise their roles as Wayne, Garth and Cassandra. Wayne and Garth are still producing, co-hosting and broadcasting their youth culture chat show entitled 'Wayne's World' on public access television, but they have relocated its production from Wayne's parent's basement to an abandoned doll factory.
While the plot mainly revolves around the preparations for a rock festival, 'Waynestock', once again Wayne's relationship with Cassandra is threatened, this time by slick record producer Bobby Cahn (Christopher Walken), who takes an interest in Cassandra. Wayne's situation is not helped by the arrival of Cassandra's father from Hong Kong, who takes an instant dislike to Wayne. There is also a cute sub-plot involving Garth and the mysterious Honey Hornee (Kim Basinger).
The movie is more post-modern than the original. Not only do Wayne and Garth talk to the audience and crew, but the director (Stephen Surjik) even appears on-screen at one point to re-cast one of the actors. In keeping with post-modernism, there are also many satirical references to other movies, such as The Doors, The Graduate and Jurassic Park.
With a different director and a much bigger budget following the unexpected $200 USD success of the original movie, Wayne's World 2 has a slightly different look and feel. While director Penelope Spheeris noted that she tried to keep the original Wayne's World grounded in reality, Stephen Surjik appears to have no such concerns with Wayne's World 2.
Overall, it is a very worthy sequel. It retains the fun and spirit of the original movie, yet develops the characters, allowing them to mature.
"You'll laugh again! You'll cry again! You'll hurl again!!!"
As with the original, the transfer is very good, and a pleasure to watch on a 16x9 widescreen television. It does appear slightly grainy at times, such as at 18:40, but this is attributable to the source material.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
The image is quite sharp. For an example of this, consider the fine detail on display at 56:23. Occasionally the background does become soft and blurry, such as at 27:59 and 49:33. There are a few dark scenes, and the black level and shadow detail are excellent. There is no low level noise.
The colour is brilliant, with excellent colour saturation and realistic skin tones. Examples of this can be seen at 35:22, 56:23 and 68:04.
There are no MPEG artefacts or film-to-video artefacts, however, if one pays very close attention, film artefacts are evident throughout the movie. Examples of these tiny black or white flecks can be seen at 15:14, 28:49, and 56:03.
As with the original movie, there is some slight edge enhancement, for example at 79:49. But again this is so slight that it is probably not even worth noting.
All the subtitles promised on the packaging are present. The English subtitles are fairly accurate, but occasionally simplified, which loses some of the charm. For example "No troubles bubbles", was subtitled simply as "No troubles".
This is a RSDL disc with the layer change placed during Chapter 10, at 44:35. While it is during a chapter, it is between scenes, so it is not disruptive.
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Like the original movie, the sequel was theatrically released in Dolby Stereo Surround, and remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 for this DVD. Again the audio retains much of its original Stereo Surround feel, but the spaciousness and crispness of the audio mix are noticeably improved from the first movie.
Apart from the English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, there are also four Dolby Stereo Surround tracks: French, Italian, Spanish and the Director's Commentary.
The dialogue quality and audio sync are excellent on the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.
The musical score is credited to Carter Burwell, but it is the movie's source music that grabs the listener's attention, whether it be Aerosmith raising the roof with Dude Looks Like A Lady, the 'Village People' (Not!) performing YMCA, or Ms Hornee playing a CD of Stan Getz's magnificent rendition of Girl From Ipanema. In keeping with the post-modern flavour of the movie, the score also incorporates the themes from Mission Impossible, The Graduate and Batman.
As stated earlier, the surround sound mix is extremely front-heavy, but considering that this is a dialogue based comedy, that is quite acceptable. The rear speakers are used occasionally to help carry the score and provide some ambience, for example at 3:05. Good moments of surround activity occur at a night club (48:15), at rock concerts (6:16 and 83:53), and during a thunder storm (25:08). There are not a great deal of split rear directional effects, but one nice effect involves an ambulance closing its doors and driving off at 50:23.
Like the original, this is not the sort of movie to exploit the use of your subwoofer. Nonetheless, the subwoofer is utilised to support the music, for example, the thumping YMCA at 48:45. It also does support the occasional sound effect, such as a T-Rex at 25:50 (No Way?! Way!!!).
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As with the original Wayne's World DVD, the extras would be described as being of 'quality' rather than 'quantity'. Strangely, the theatrical trailer is utilised as part of the menu, but it is not an extra itself.
Similar to the menu on Wayne's World, this clever animated menu emulates a cable television guide (such as Channel 13 on Foxtel). The menu is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Stereo sound. The menu also features a number of humorous adverts and plays the movie trailer within a window of the screen.
I can re-hash one of my review comments from Wayne's World here, as these interviews are taken from the same source: "Thankfully these are genuine interviews, and not the usual television marketing dribble."
Running for fourteen minutes and five seconds, this extra is presented in an aspect ratio of 4:3, non-16x9 Enhanced. Clips from the film are presented in pan and scan. Strangely, the audio is Dolby Stereo Surround encoded, yet the surrounds are not used at all.
Again, "the interviews are recent, and despite the usual mutual-admiration back-slapping, they are quite interesting". Some of the principal cast and crew members reflect on how the sequel came about, and on the casting of Kim Basinger, and Saturday Night Live regulars Christopher Walken and Aerosmith.
While this was Surjik's first feature movie, he had a strong background in directing music and concert videos which served him well. In his commentary, Surjik focuses on some of the technical challenges of filmmaking. He makes a number of interesting observations about the structure of comedy movies, and how it has evolved over time. Surjik is quite analytical at times, but does provide the odd anecdote, such as his trepidation at having to direct Christopher Walken and Charlton Heston.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Wayne's World and its sequel Wayne's World 2 were both released on DVD in Region 1 in October 2001. Region 1 consumers have the choice of buying them separately, or packaged together as Wayne's World 1 & 2 - The Complete Epic, whereas in Australia, they are only available separately.
As for Wayne's World 2 . . .
The Region 4 DVD misses out on:
The Region 1 DVD misses out on:
As the two versions are pretty even, I favour the local release for its affordability, and superior PAL image.
Wayne's World 2 is a worthy sequel, and an entertaining, fun pop-culture post-modern comedy in its own right.
The video quality is excellent.
The audio quality is very good, although front-heavy.
The extras are genuine and add to the enjoyment of the movie.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
| Display | Grundig Elegance 82-2101 (82cm, 16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
| Speakers | Sony SS-V315 x5; Sony SA-WMS315 subwoofer |