Blue Brothers 2000

Bomb Rating: 

If I had wanted to watch two hours of "VH-1," guesswhat? I would have stayed home and done that. For free.

Any film that inspired Dan Aykroyd to lose weight is okay with me. I mean, we're talking about a guy who was getting so fat that people were starting to wonder not whether he was still married to Donna Dixon, but whether he had eaten her.

Otherwise, "Blues Brothers 2000" plays like a movie inspired by an album. How would you approach the film version of "Led Zeppelin II" for instance? Well, you'd probably think up any dumb-ass excuse you could to get your characters from one situation to another so they could sing each song on the album. If I had wanted to watch two hours of "VH-1," guess what? I would have stayed home and done that. For free.

What microscopic story there is revolves around Elwood Blues (Aykroyd) trying to get the Blues Brothers back together 18 years after the original band disbanded and Elwood got sent to jail. He gets out and finds out John Belushi is dead (don't they have newspapers in prison?). Undaunted, Elwood digs up a John Belushi replacement (John Goodman), a Cab Calloway replacement (Joe Morton) and an annoying little kid named Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) to run around with him and sing gratingly bad songs.

Just about everybody from the original movie reappears, looking about 18 years older, more tired, and more concerned with their prostate problems than playing in a rock and roll band. Frankly, I would have preferred "Blues Brothers 2001" -- we could have shot the band into space and watch them twirl around to the tune of "Blue Danube."

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