Lazy, laying in the shadow of the original film, doesn't have much merit in itself.
Daniel Petrie decided to take a film that was successful and acquired a certain affection and make a poor sequel. I think almost everyone knows that a sequel to a good movie is almost never as good as the original movie... it could be a cliché, but the truth is that it is something so common that it has become something to watch. Besides, for studios, it's a good way to make money without considerable effort or a big capital draw.
What this film offers us is, in short, more of the same, but without any charm. The film leans against the shadow of the predecessor's success and peacefully slumbers in the belief that we will like it because we liked the first film. It didn't work for me. The only thing that makes this movie really worthwhile is the fact that it reunites most of its predecessor's cast. It's worth seeing some of the shenanigans of Don Ameche, Wilford Brimey, Maureen Stapleton and Jack Gilford. You can tell they're having a lot of fun with the project, and that the film, even if it's not brilliant, allowed them to revisit characters they enjoyed playing. The movie works reasonably well thanks to this, and the older cast almost have their own separate sub-plot, but the movie loses out by not going beyond that, thanks to a rather weak script. Steve Guttenberg, for example, is even more uninteresting here than he was in the original film, which is really something relevant. Technically, the film doesn't make any major mistakes or flaws, but it isn't particularly brilliant.
