# Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

### reviewed by
Doug Skiles

    BLUES BROTHERS 2000 (1998)

Starring: Dan Aykroyd (Elwood Blues), John Goodman (Mack McTeer/Mighty Mack Blues), Joe Morton (Cabel Chamberlain), J. Evan Bonifant (Buster), and just about every blues artist you can think of, both past and present

Directed by: John Landis, Written by: Dan Aykroyd and John Landis

    Reviewed by Doug Skiles

Everybody... needs somebody... everybody...

THE BLUES BROTHERS. It's a classic. It's John Landis. It's John Belushi. It's Dan Aykroyd. It's blues music. It's great comedy.

Now it's 18 years later. Now it's BLUES BROTHERS 2000. It's John Landis. It's Dan Aykroyd. It's John Goodman. It's Joe Morton. It's J. Evan Bonifant. It's blues music. It's good comedy.

BLUES BROTHERS 2000 starts off just the way you'd want it to - with a card that says "for" followed by the names of John Candy, Cab Calloway, and John Belushi. Then, with "John the Revelator" playing over the soundtrack, we watch Elwood Blues emerge from prison. He stands and waits for his brother Jake (originally played by John Belushi), until the prison warden (Frank Oz, who was the corrections officer in the original film) approaches him, puts his hand on Elwood's shoulder, and says, simply, "I'm sorry." Elwood understands. He bows his head, silently, in grief. It's a moment that reminds us that these characters, as screwball as they may seem, still have a heart and soul.

Elwood recieves a letter from Sister Mary Stigmata - now Mother Stigmata - asking him to come see her. He does, and when he arrives, he learns that his surrogate father, Curtis (Cab Calloway in the first film), has also passed on. It's then that Elwood realizes that he's lost his family, and, left yearning for his old friends, he decides that it's time, once again, to get the band back together.

But Mother Stigmata wants him to a mentor to a young troublemaker, Buster. And Elwood wants his sort-of step-brother (the sort-of gets explained by Stigmata and Elwood through a couple of dialogue sequences), Cabel, who happens to be an Illinois state police captain, to join the band. And pretty soon Elwood meets a bartender who can actually sing pretty well, Mack McTeer. And of course, Mack joins the band.

And pretty soon, also, the police are after the band, as are the Russian mafia, a group of white supremacists, and a collection of orphanage workers who fear Elwood's kidnapped Buster. And they're all chasing the newly reassembled Blues Brothers Band across state after state as they head to a "Battle Of The Bands" contest in New Orleans. Naturally this results in lots of wacky chase scenes and the like. It's a Blues Brothers speciality.

The comedy here is good. It's fun. But it's not on the same level as the hilarious, classic stuff from the first film. It does, however, recreate the feel of the first film, and that's important. The city backdrops that line all the scenes as Elwood travels through Chicago during the first half of the movie add to that feeling, too.

The music, though, IS pretty much on the same level, and offers a wider variety of blues acts from both today and yesterday, ranging from Aretha Franklin to Blues Traveler. It's great fun, very exhilerating, and is sure to get you moving to the beat with some area of your person. It's probably the film's strongest aspect.

As far as annoying aspects, well, the fantasy in this film is heavier than in the first. Both films ignore the laws of physics in favor of wild comedy, but this one also tosses magic into the mix periodically. Of course, that's not too hard to accept, really - this is the Blues Brothers, you weren't expecting something serious, were you?

But in all of this, the movie still has an underlying heart and soul to it. In the original, it was about getting the money to save the orphanage. Now, it's about Elwood getting a new structure for his life. Even if this isn't a major theme, there remains something satisfying about seeing Elwood build himself a new family to hold his life together, out of old friends from the band, plus new friends like the large-yet-shy Mack and the lovable Buster, who feels the blues in him even at age 10, and steals a lot of scenes. Out of the four major players, Cabel is the least characterized, but it doesn't really matter, because Joe Morton always holds a presence on the screen.

The sign that, even if it isn't a classic, this is still a good movie, is that it leaves you wanting more. Does that mean there should be another sequel? I'm not sure about that. I don't know where else the band could go from here. Even this one borrows a number of elements from the first movie. And while that's not a serious problem for this sequel, as it still takes those elements in new directions, one has to note that, if these elements were used a third time, they most likely wouldn't be able to hold up.

So, see BLUES BROTHERS 2000. Enjoy it. It's fun, and the music is great. Maybe it's not nearly as hilarious as the classic first one, but it still manages to be funny, and it's just likable. Most importantly, even though John Belushi's wild antics are obviously missed, this manages to be a respectable, well-done follow-up to THE BLUES BROTHERS, despite what many naysayers feared. To have that be pulled off, after 18 years, is something to be proud of. John Landis has made his best movie in a long time, and it looks that, perhaps, Dan Aykroyd, thanks to this and his memorable-yet-smaller role in GROSSE POINTE BLANK (1997), may be entering into his renaissance after a long dry period.

    RATING: ***

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