BEFORE: Walter Matthau carries over from "Plaza Suite", and Jack Lemmon comes back, and I get to close the book on Neil Simon adaptations. This also gives me a chance to talk about television, since many people are more familiar with "The Odd Couple" as a TV show - either the old incarnation with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, or the reboot version that's currently airing, with Matthew Perry and Tom Lennon. (There was a 1980's black version once upon a time, too, with Ron Glass and Demond Wilson - hell, in the future there will probably be a version where a neat robot moves in with a messy robot...)
I'm still trying to finish TV from this past season, I stored a bunch of shows on VHS to clear my DVR - I'm just starting to hit the shows from early May, so please, no spoilers on season finales, I'm just not there yet. My wife and I did catch up on "MasterChef", we're also trying to stay current on "The Next Food Network Star", and we watched the first episode of "True Detective" together. I tried to binge-watch "Wayward Pines", but I only got three episodes in, and now since I need to go to Massachusetts for the weekend, and then to San Diego next week, I'll probably lose my momentum on that. In the meantime, I'm buoyed by the news that I'll probably never have to waste time watching "Celebrity Apprentice" again. I should be supporting Trump's campaign and his rants against various ethnic groups for that reason alone.
THE PLOT: Oscar and Felix take a road trip to their son and daughter's wedding.
AFTER: I feel like I've broken the code on Neil Simon productions now, so stand back, because I'm about to tie this whole thing together. Two friends who've been divorced ("The Heartbreak Kid", "The Goodbye Girl") and used to share a spacious NYC apartment (as in "Prisoner of Second Avenue") get back together and go on a road trip plagued with difficulty ("The Out-of-Towners") and then find out that one of the participants has second thoughts about marriage ("Plaza Suite"). Simple, right? Oh, and they bicker a lot (umm, every Neil Simon film ever).
The main reason to watch this is to catch up with Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, letting Matthau and Lemmon return to the roles they made famous in the first film. But while the original stage play and the original TV sitcom almost never let them leave the apartment, here they get to trek across California, or at least they get to try. Reunited after 17 years apart, the slob and the neat freak are older and slower, plus Felix has to eat every four hours, take pills every two hours, and stop at the restroom every 30 minutes. (Good luck planning all those rest stops.)
To make matters worse, Felix hurts his foot AND Oscar forgets Felix's suitcase AND neither one knows how to use a GPS or smartphone or even ask for directions AND neither one can remember the name of the California town they're supposed to be driving to. Yeah, "San something-or-other" is not going to be much help. They get stuck in one particular town, and each time they try to leave, events conspire to bring them back before the same chief of police. That's probably the film's best running gag, the rest of the gags are sort of limping by with the aid of canes and walkers.
It's a contrivance that Felix's daughter and Oscar's son are in a relationship. It's a contrivance that the two men share a rental car. It's a contrivance that they end up on a plane with Oscar's ex-wife's sister. This is nothing BUT one contrivance after another, but if the film didn't have these contrivances, it might not go anywhere at all.
Can two divorced men share a rental car, or a hotel room, without driving each other crazy? If you've seen the sitcom, you know the answer is probably "No". If you share your space with anyone long enough, you're going to get under their skin, and they're going to get under yours. You will learn how to push each other's buttons, but whether you continue to do so is really up to you. Oscar and Felix were destined to cross paths again, it's just a shame that the reunion wasn't funnier.
This represents a 30-year gap between a film and its direct sequel - "The Odd Couple" was released as a film in 1968, and this one came out in 1998. But that's not a record, because it eventually got passed by a bunch of Disney sequels, most notably "Fantasia II" (59 years since the first film) and "Bambi II" (63 years since the first film). Never underestimate Disney's ability to make more money by resurrecting an old idea.
Also starring Jack Lemmon (last seen in "The Prisoner of Second Avenue"), Jonathan Silverman (last seen in "Brighton Beach Memoirs"), Lisa Waltz, Richard Riehle (last seen in "Shadows and Fog"), Christine Baranski (last seen in "Into the Woods"), Jean Smart (last seen in "The Kid"), Rex Linn, Jay O. Sanders (last seen in "Revolutionary Road"), Ellen Geer (last seen in "When a Man Loves a Woman"), with cameos from Florence Stanley (also last seen in "The Prisoner of Second Avenue"), Estelle Harris, Rebecca Schull, Alice Ghostley, Lou Cutell, Amy Yasbeck, Liz Torres.
RATING: 3 out of 10 crates of peaches
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