SnoopyStyle It turns out that the horse statue in the Brady family living room is a priceless artifact unbeknownst to the Bradys. The gang is back with the same satirical take on the 70s TV family. Tim Matheson plays the mysterious man who shows up claiming to be Carol Brady's first husband Roy. Carol doesn't recognize him but he claims to be disfigured by an elephant. Everybody buys into the story as he tries to steal the horse.The gang is still fun satire but Tim Matheson adds nothing to the movie. The setup needs to be more natural and not so stupid. The family should be the only ones doing silly things. Also they keep pushing Marcia and Greg together. Everything is just a little bit too awkward. The first Brady Bunch movie is much more in keeping with the ideas of the original TV show.

D.L. Polonsky First off, it should go without saying that The Brady Bunch was one of the worst, lamest, stupidest shows on television, but it goes without saying, too, that a lot of forty-and- fiftysomethings disagree. That, I think, is pretty much solely because it reminds them of their childhood, when most of them were happier, and had their whole life ahead of them, and any show that they remember watching in their youth, and that has some semblance of the styles, values and attitudes of that era, regardless of how bad the writing is, will do the same thing for them. With dialogue and behavior so brain-damaged it's almost a surreal experience to watch, it's perfect fodder for a satire. It should have been done in the late seventies, of course, a few years after it was cancelled, but better late than never. Unfortunately, these are affectionate satires created by people who seemingly actually liked the show, but they still work because the jokes are so dead-on and they string all the elements of the show together to create simple, entertaining plots. They're actually very campy, which is probably the best way to approach this immaterial material. The sequel, for a change, is the superior of the two. The first one was kind of boring, which is the worst thing a satire can be. The plot of the stolen horse in the sequel is appropriately ludicrous. Christine Taylor as Marcia bears a freakily uncanny resemblance to Maureen McCormick. Olivia Hack creates a classic distortion of Cindy. The only characters that don't quite work are Christopher Daniel Barnes as Greg, using facial mannerisms that parody straight-edge 70's nerds in general but not Greg in particular, and Shelley Long as Carol. There's always something subtly sad and pitiful about Shelly Long's face, voice and mannerisms in everything she's acted in. It works for Jay Pritchett's ex-wife and Diane Chambers, but is precisely wrong for Carol Brady. Her character seems like it thinks deeply and gets depressed, which makes the character too three-dimensional. Tim Matheson as Carol's fake ex-husband is humorously self-serving and unctuous. It's just personal taste, but I found the short-sleeve Banlon shirts he wears in almost every scene really annoying. Zsa Zsa Gabor's cameo was great. I don't see the satirical significance of having Rosie O'Donnell there though. There was one missed opportunity for a good joke. After the scene where Roy has a trip after eating spaghetti in which Alice accidentally put his stash of psychedelic mushrooms, he asks Marsha, "Who put the psychedelic mushrooms in the spaghetti?" She should have said, "Go ask Alice. I think she'll know."

Isaac5855 A VERY BRADY SEQUEL was the 1996 sequel to THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE which tries to touch upon all the episodes of the classic TV series that the first movie didn't. The paper-thin premise of this sequel centers on the appearance of a shady con-man (Tim Matheson) who arrives on the Bradys' doorstep claiming to be Carol's long-lost first husband, who, according to this film's opening scene, was lost at sea. The con-man is really there to get his hands on a statue that has sat in the background of every episode of the TV show and we now learn that it is part of a set and worth a lot of money. But the funniest part of this movie for me is a subplot in which after Roy's arrival, Greg (Christopher Daniel Barnes) and Marcia (Christine Taylor) learn they may not be brother and sister and start lusting after each other. This is, of course, a knowing nod to all those who have read Barry Williams' book GROWING UP BRADY where he confesses to having been madly in love with Maureen McCormick and had trouble looking at her in a sisterly way when they were working. This movie addresses this in a hysterical scene where Greg and Marcia are sharing the room in the attic and start undressing in silhouette. This scene is cleverly shot and perfectly performed by Barnes and Taylor. The rest of the cast has settled comfortably into their roles for this sequel, especially Gary Cole, who is just spooky as Robert Reed as Mike Brady and Jennifer Elise Cox, who steals every scene she is in as Jan. The fun peters out before a truly lame finale, but for true fans, there is fun to be had here.

moonspinner55 Bright, easy-to-take follow-up to 1995's "The Brady Bunch Movie", a spot-on (if not especially hilarious) send-up of the kitschy '70s TV series about a widower with three boys who marries a single mother with three girls. The television show never explained what happened to Carol Brady's first husband, which is the engaging starting point for this plot. Tim Matheson shows up claiming to be the long-lost father of Marcia, Jan and Cindy--but is he an imposter? Has the same wonderful sets and color schemes from the 1995 movie, and the same cast is reassembled in high style, but the basic problems from before remain: weak, repetitive gags and in-jokes stolen from the TV show retold without any irony (only camp value). Mixture of silly, harmless laughs and groaners make the results enjoyable for fans, but intolerable to anyone else. ** from ****