SimonJack The first go round was such a hit, that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau got together for this sequel to the 1993 smash hit, "Grumpy Old Men." And "Grumpier Old Men" is every bit as good as the first film. It has some new characters and the scene changes from winter to summer, then winter and spring. Most reviewers don't talk about the surprise of the wedding in the first film. And I won't do that for that film or this one. John (Lemmon) and Max (Matthau) team up for a time in the movie to plan the wedding of their daughter and son, Melanie and Jacob (played by Daryl Hannah and Kevin Pollak). And, later, to try to thwart the conversion of their bait shop into an Italian restaurant. Sophia Loren is the added ingredient for much humor as Maria Sophia Coletta Ragetti. She's a cousin of "Spaghetti" Ragetti, whom John and Max know. Her mother is in the picture, Mama Ragetti, played by Ann Morgan Guilbert. And, grandpa Gustafson is back, with Burgess Meredith now a couple years older. He tells son, John, as they sit by the lake drinking beer, that he sometimes thinks God has forgotten about him. The hijinks and capers in this film include some hilarious pranks the two friendly enemies pull on the Ragettis. As with the original film, this one supposedly takes place in Wabasha, Minnesota. While it is a real town on the Mississippi River border with Wisconsin, the filming for this and the earlier movie was done in a number of places around that area of southeastern Minnesota. So, anyone going to Wabasha won't find the fishing lake, the town overlook or some other scenes shown in these films. With the 10 films they made together – especially the nine comedies, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau have delighted audiences for decades. May they outlive Catfish Hunter and continue amuse people for decades to come.

Steve Pulaski It's not uncommon for a movie sequel to do little to the formula that made its predecessor so financially (and hopefully critically) successful. The old "if it ain't broke don't fix it" method of filmmaking has been used in the Hangover, Home Alone, and Taken franchise to only modest success in terms of quality. However, in Grumpier Old Men, the sequel to the fine comedy Grumpy Old Men, handles the rehashed formula better than many film sequels do.While I'm getting to sound repetitive and out of descriptive words, this is largely because of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau's chemistry together on-screen. From the moment they appear, it's almost impossible to believe the men's friendship in real life wasn't lifelong and consisted largely of playful torment, vulgarity, and several boys nights out. Had the film been a sequel with few returning cast members (say Lemmon and Matthau were substituted by two other actors), this sequel would've likely been a somber affair to view.In a way, I'm thankful the town of Wabasha Minnesota hasn't really changed much since our last outing, with the exception of John Gustafson (Jack Lemon) marrying Ariel (Ann-Margret) from the original film. In the meantime, John's dad still lives off a diet of beer, cigarettes, and bacon and Max Goldman (Walter Matthau), John's cantankerous neighbor, still finds himself engaging in petty neighborhood battles with John about outwitting the other man. However, the big ordeal this time is not competing for a new neighbor's love but trying to save a local bait shop from becoming a "restaurante" for Italian cuisine. The restaurant is managed by Maria Ragetti (Sophia Loren), a gorgeous but uncompromisingly strict woman who catches the eye of Max even as him and Jack plan to foil the restaurant's forthcoming prosperity.Other events (aka subplots) occurring in Wabasha are the wedding between Max's son Jacob (Kevin Pollak) John's daughter Melanie (Daryl Hannah), a plot which would later be used by the same director Howard Deutch in The Odd Couple II, also starring Lemmon and Matthau, along with John trying to get his father (Burgess Meredith in his final role, which was burdened by spouts with Alzheimer's and difficultly remembering lines, some female company as he gets older. One of Grumpier Old Men's immediate issues is that there is simply too much going on between plot-strands that involve marriage/romance troubles (I counted four including John's brief trouble with Ariel later in the movie) ad others that involve trying to sabotage the bait-shop-turned-restaurant.Grumpier Old Men may have too many new ideas for cutesy subplots, but it keeps the tone and feel of its predecessor alive and well. It still feels like Wabasha is the location of a sitcom with its oddball situations that seem to consistently bear hefty consequences for its residents, but its characters still feel like real people we've come to known and care about.Unsurprisingly, Lemmon and Matthau share unbelievable conversational beauty in the way they engage in simple discussions that seem to constantly end in uproariously funny bickering. Once you minimize your focus on that aspect in the film, you have just an average comedy that, while charming and pleasantly safe (a good and bad quality for this particular kind of picture), is just grateful to be buoyed by two very talented leading men.Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret, Kevin Pollak, Daryl Hannah, Sophia Loren, and Burgess Meredith. Directed by: Howard Deutch.

lagudafuad After the fun of watching Lemmon and Matthau act like kids for less than 2 hours (i.e. from the first movie) I was satisfied, but then due to the success of the first movie the producers decided to give it another twirl, this time the story had the two starting off as friends thanks to the incidents that happened in the ending of the first film, but then some really really idiotic stupid reason, they were at it again.The movie was not funny as it was like a replay of the first, same pranks, similar plot and screenplay made this movie a waste of time. After getting a mate for John, they (the producers) decided to get a mate for Max, with nothing to write home about but a lame script that just showed no finesse or true plan, just the producers hoping to bank on the success of the previous movie.The main disappointment in the movie for me was Sophia Loren; her acting was just too weak for me to understand that she is a star. Everybody else in the movie even Burgess Meredith (who had Alzheimer's disease and this was his last motion picture appearance) was impressive, at least that I can give them. The movie is directed this time by Howard Deutch, who later worked with the duo in 1998 for Odd Couple II, Deutch other movies also have not been well received like Getting Even with Dad (1994) and The Whole Ten Yards (2004), which are basically the reason why I will not bother seeing My Best Friend's Girl.The movie plot carries on 6 months after the incidents of the first, where both John (Lemmon) and Max (Matthau) were getting prepared for the wedding of their children. Then a new arrival in town a beautiful lady by the name of Maria Ragetti (Sophia Loren) came in to change things by turning the towns bait shop to a restaurant.John and Max join forces to try and run the new lady out of town, but the issues between John and Max's children marriage plan caused both to reignite their feud as both refused to believe that their child was at fault.Only the ladies are alive till today (February 2013), as both Lemmon and Matthau died like half a decade after this movie release. Grumpier Old Men was a box office success in its own part, but a huge critical disappointment, as the movie cost 10 million dollars less than its predecessor and made like a million more in the box office.After you have seen the first there is basically no point why you should bother seeing this one, because it will stand in my mind as one movie I credit as a waste of time and talent.www.lagsreviews.com

writers_reign It's just possible that the intention was to shoot four Grumpy Old Men titles featuring the four seasons because after the Winter setting of the first one we are now in Summer though theoretically such a cycle should have begun with Spring and ended with Winter so maybe the cyclical thing was an afterthought. Whatever we have virtually the same cast doing virtually the same thing with one absentee and two replacements one of which, Anna Guilbert is actually a native of Minneapolis adding a touch of authenticity. If it was unrealistic that Ann Margaret - who, after all, was teaching English at university and would by definition have access to dozens of eligible males - would marry Jack Lemmon in the first film it is equally unrealistic that Sophia Loren would wed Walter Mattheau here other than for feelgood reasons. On the other hand it's probably churlish to nitpick in this way when the film is only intended to entertain. Which it does.