THE ODD COUPLE 2

year: 1996

rating: *

The sound of a trumpet played by a pro: rich, vibrant, and beautiful. The sound of the trumpet's mouthpiece, no matter who's playing it, sounds like a... raspberry. That's exactly what this film, the sequel to the symbolic "trumpet" THE ODD COUPLE, is. Plot has Felix Unger (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau) on a car trip to the wedding of Oscar's son and Felix's wife. Neil Simon throws in all the road-comedy cliche and then some - basically everything you saw in TRAINS, PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES but without the humor. Well there's humor but it isn't funny. The main problem is, Felix isn't really a futz and Oscar isn't really a slob... or maybe we just can't tell because they're on the road overcoming "obstacles" instead of living together. The duo are hardly at ODDS because they're in the same boat (car) and have to rely on each other: thus killing the premise of not getting along because of contrasting personalities. A better idea for a sequel would have been: Oscar and Felix living in a rural town spending idle time ice-fishing and then fall in love with a woman who... oops, that's been done (GRUMPY OLD MEN). Really though, all joking aside... this could very well be the worst sequel ever made.