The Odd Couple II (1998)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The sound of a trumpet played by a pro is 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 classic 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 every road-comedy cliché and then some: basically TRAINS, PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES without the humor. But 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 so that their differences stand out. Thus the duo is hardly at odds because they're in the same boat (car) and have to rely on each other: killing the premise of not getting along because of contrasting personalities. This catastrophe... possibly the worst sequel ever conceived... should have never seen the light of day. And unnecessary: GRUMPY OLD MEN was great enough to quench our Matthau/Lemmon thirsts, forever. (Cultfilmfreaks.com)

Back in 1970 Neil Simon wrote an Original Screenplay (as opposed to adapting one of his stage plays for the screen) entitled The Out Of Towners in which husband and wife Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis were frustrated in their efforts to travel from Ohio to New York and faced more frustration when they finally did arrive there. Now almost three decades later Simon has rewritten it so that what is essentially the same plot finds Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau frustrated in their attempts to travel to the Californian nuptials of Lemmon's daughter and Matthau's son. I'm not criticizing or complaining. Anything written by Simon is fine with me and anything written by Simon and featuring Lemmon and Matthau is even finer and there are, after all, only seven basic plots as we all know. The leads of course are reprising the characters (Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison) they played in The Odd Couple (Matthau had, in fact, created the role of Oscar Madison in the original Broadway production and though it is widely acknowledged that sequels rarely work this is an exception with enough Simon one-liners to keep most of us happy. Recommended.

In my view, there are two ways to judge this film. The first is by looking it as a "stand-alone" movie. In that way it doesn't stand up that well. The plot is okay -- a buddy road trip on the way to a wedding...only for a change it's senior citizens. The situations are HUMOROUS, but not laugh-out-loud funny. The principal actors (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau) do their jobs, while the supporting actors and actresses also do theirs. It's an amusing movie. And, if you don't know much about Lemmon and Matthau, that's all it will be to you.The other way to judge this film is by looking at it as the closing act of a REAL buddy team of two actors who have shared a big part of their lives together, both professionally and personally. Then it doesn't matter if the film is as outwardly funny as it is charmingly humorous. You sit there thinking of their first film together -- the first "The Odd Couple" -- and you reminisce. Their first outing with "The Fortune Cookie", their most memorable romp in "The Odd Couple", the hilarity of "The Front Page", their renaissance in "Grumpy Old Men" and "Grumpier Old Men", and even their not so great "Out to Sea" and "Buddy Buddy". You admire them for what they meant individually and collectively to American cinema. And as you watch the scene of them parting at the airport, just maybe you think of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in that scene in "Guess Who's Coming Together" where they both know the end is almost upon them...not in film, but in real life. And you see the wistfulness of the parting scene between Lemmon and Matthau, probably realizing that this is the last film together.So, how to judge this film? Factually or sentimentally? For me, more the latter, because it's a hearty farewell and thank you both for the laughs you have given me.

The Odd Couple II (1998) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Thirty (!!!) years after the original film, Felix (Jack Lemmon) and Oscar (Walter Matthau) find themselves thrown back together as they must take a road trip to their children's wedding. THE ODD COUPLE II should have been called GRUMPIEST OLD MEN because it has much more in common with GRUMPY OLD MEN than it does the original 1968 film. In fact, as a sequel this movie is quite bad because it's really not the same characters as before and the entire mood is different but if you go into this expecting another dirty-talking old man movie then you should at least get enough laughs to make it worth sitting through. Once again all the magic is due to Lemmon and Matthau who still have that wonderful chemistry together. The two of them were certainly among the greatest comedy actors out there and when they're together they're even more special. The screenplay here really just puts them in one comedic situation after another and I'll admit that none of it is all that original. There's even a rather lazy sequence in a small town where the two just keep getting arrested over and over. I don't think this happens because of great writing but instead because they needed to pump out the running time so they just kept repeating the same type of joke. The film starts off as a road picture and I think these sequences get the biggest laughs as it relates most to the original film as Oscar has to put up with the various annoying things that Felix does. The film certainly has some major problems including the screenplay that just doesn't do much and instead just has a bunch of cussing and fighting between the two men. Yes, at times it's funny but by 1998 we had already seen it in the two GRUMPY OLD MEN films as well as OUT TO SEA. Still, if you're a fan of the two legends then there's no question you'll still want to check this out even if it falls short of their best films.