Some movies you just have to ask "why?". What on earth would possess apparently sane movie producers that a sequel to a film which was critically mauled, flopped disastrously, is over 18 years old, and has had half its putative comedy duo drop dead of a drugs overdose over a decade ago was a halfway decent idea? And yet the green light flickered on.
How you react to Blues Brothers 2000 really depends on your take on the first movie - since it is essentially a straight remake with John Goodman slipping recklessly under and behind the late John Belushi's hat and shades. We also have the introduction of a Culkin-alike in the shape of "J. Evan Bonifant", here a refugee from the orphanage for which Elwood (Aykroyd) and the gang intend to raise money by, ho hum, getting the band back together and taking part in a Battle Of The Bands competition.
On the way all the "old favourites" such as Aretha Franklin (who belts out her old hit R.E.S.P.E.C.T.) are brought back from the dead. The roadhouse mini-concert is replaced by a monster-truck show, and they are no longer "on a mission from God" but rather declare that "God works in mysterious ways". Given the fact that this film exists at all, we can be in no doubt about that.
This is a warmed-up corpse of a movie, having neither the courage to do anything new or the wit to make a joke out of its own unoriginality. To be fair, a couple of the songs are what your gran would no-doubt call toe-tapping, and for those of a musical bent the final battle, which turns into an extended jamming session, is apparently impressive simply in terms of the number of famous faces up there on the same stage.
