Wholly Unsatisfying

Nothing about the sequel to "The Whole Nine Yards" is new. A perfect example of the phenomenon of spring sequels that should not exist but often do anyway, this movie careens through its scenes with no explanation. Even a "surprise" ending fails to add suspense to a story that just doesn't work.

"The Whole Ten Yards," however, certainly lives up to its title in one respect: from fart jokes to dentistry to Hungarian mobsters, this film cashes in on every cheap gag possible. Bruce Willis in an apron! Clappers! Foul-mouthed girl scouts! Pregnancies! Full-frontal nudity! Oh, wait -- that was in the first one. But while the first was surprisingly fun, the second is just tired.

As a sequel to 2000's "The Whole Nine Yards", a funny if slightly hackneyed "the-mob-is-funny movie," this second installment fails miserably. While the cast played the first with a wink and a smile, enjoying the absurdity of a Hungarian mobster comedy set in Montreal. In the sequel, even the actors seem to sense there is no excuse for the film's existence.

The opening montage goes from 1960's Chicago to Mexico to California to another place in California all in the first 10 minutes. The film plays almost like a series of sketches, as if director Howard Deutch had no attention span, and instead decided to rely on unfunny and annoying stunt after stunt. The film progresses clumsily and sloppily -- as if the plot was decided after shooting the film. The stilted scenes seem slapped together in the editing room like ragged pieces of an old jigsaw puzzle -- and it's a bad fit.

The action goes down something like this: Oz (Matthew Perry) and Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge) are a wealthy Californian couple with a big house, nice cars, a couple MK-47s and various other artillery. Jimmy "the Tulip" (Bruce Willis) and Jill (Amanda Peet) are a wealthy couple in Mexico with the same possessions. When Lazlo (Kevin Pollak), Hungarian mob boss and father of Yanni, the hit of the last movie, gets out of jail, he goes vigilante to avenge the death of his favored son which the afformentioned four are responsible for. This allows for some shooting, smacking around, the presence of stupid mobsters, and explosions.

Pollak, who played Yanni in the first film, reprises his Hungarian every-mobster character with painful enthusiasm. His performance is so exaggerated it's embarrassing to watch. Shouting, hacking, and mumbling his lines in a weak parody of Marlin Brando's godfather, his fellas have no choice but to camp it up similarly. The mobsters are all buffoons, ridiculously so, and their comedy relies on punches, guns, and stupidity.

The trigger-happy Amanda Peet, as former dental assistant turned hit woman Jill, is unable to actually kill anyone; her targets fall victim to death by spaghetti, nasty falls, and various other slapstick misfortunes. Despite her character and the plot, she manages to turn in the better performance of the film. Natasha Henstridge, as Cynthia, the token hot wife of the flick, has switched from one leading man to the other and remains uninteresting.

Bruce Willis's character, Jimmy "the Tulip" Tudeski, reaches heights unprecedented in the last movie: a one-night stand with Perry, drunken confessions of childhood bedwetting, deep emotional attachment to a chicken named Blanche. Blanche is accidentally killed by Perry in his Porsche. Naturally, this spurs yet another breakdown from Willis. He blubbers ludicrously throughout this movie in an attempt to force the laughs that just aren't there.

The movie might have been redeemable had it made any sense at all. It's difficult to find the motivation of any of the characters at any point in the film. Though the ending is happy (of course), it doesn't really matter. As they've set themselves up so nicely since the last film, there isn't really anything that they can possibly want. The payoff is cheap and the acting is strained. "The Whole Ten Yards" is just another premature, stupid summer sequel.