The Gods Must Be Crazy II

This sequel to the low-budget cult-comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy lacks the simple warmth of the original. In fact, it's a bit of a potboiler - but there's enough of the original charm left to make it reasonably diverting.

In this tale from the Kalahari, we meet again the little Bushman Xixo (played by genuine Bushman Nxau) and hear again his wonderful 'click' language.

Elephant-ivory poachers have invaded the Kalahari. And two of Xixo's children, a little girl and even smaller boy, have by accident found their truck and hidden themselves away, as the poachers step on the gas and flee the scene of their murderous crime. Xixo finds the tracks and sets out running in pursuit.

Meanwhile, in what is virtually another world, American lawyer Dr Ann Taylor (Lena Farugia) has travelled to Africa to deliver a paper at a conference. But as a result of some very fast plot developments, instead of delivering her paper, she is trapped inside a light-aircraft with a taciturn vet, Dr Stephen Marshall (Hans Strydom).

The small plane is being buffeted by a sudden storm and, in one of the movie's most ingenious scenes, it suddenly plunges to earth, coming to rest atop a giant Baobab tree. Stephen and Ann manage to descend safely, and Stephen manages to dislodge his errant craft. And before you can blink, Dr Ann is up in the air, flying solo, not knowing what she's doing, or where she's headed.

At the same time, an African soldier and a Cuban 'freedom-fighter' (this movie was made in 1988, around the time Fidel Castro was trying to export his brand of freedom) have run into each other in the bush and are having a spot of trouble deciding who has captured whom. Along comes Dr Ann, who solves their dilemma by capturing them both.

Meanwhile, our two bushman children have managed to get away from the poachers' truck. Will their dad find them? Will Dr Stephen find Dr Ann? Will the elephant poachers be brought to justice? And will the soldier and Cuban freedom-fighter find happiness and true love? Warning - spoiler alert. Take a few guesses; you'll probably be right.

Yes, it's a very hokey plot. There's some slapstick, but it's slapstick of circumstance only, without the quite inspired clowning which enlivened the original movie. But there is some very real charm, most of it courtesy of the two children, Xixo and Xiri, who are both very cute - or, as my wife said, when she glanced at the screen, "so adorable".

The film wasn't really strong enough to lure her from her book, apart from the occasional quick glance. And that's probably a very fair judgement of it. It's moderately pleasant viewing but, in the end, a bit of a time-waster.

The widescreen anamorphic transfer is a bit superior to the first movie, with very little image damage until the very end frames. Colours are nicely captured with no sign of fading.

Some of the more travelogue-style wildlife panoramic shots seem very slightly over-exposed compared to the rest of the movie, but only as if there was a not-quite perfect match between the results achieved by the writer/devisor/director Jamie Uys and the location-director (and overall director of photography) Buster Reynolds. This is hardly noticeable and doesn't detract from the overall good quality of the print and transfer.

The two-channel Dolby Digital stereo gives quite marked channel separation at times, particularly for ambient effects in the bush.

Sound is very clear and dialogue delivered very naturally. There are no special effects as such; this is a serviceable soundtrack which is not called on to deliver anything remarkable.

There is a six-minute remembrance of director Jamie Uys by his cinematographer Buster Reynolds. He brings us a nice picture of just how complex Uys's editing was, with hours of work spent to create just a few seconds of humour. And he outlines the time involved in bringing the second movie to the screen - it took several months, for instance, to find a suitable Baobab tree for the light-plane sequence, and shooting that sequence had to be done in instalments over three years to capture the tree in the appropriate season. There's nothing here though about Jamie Uys the man, or what sort of career he had apart from these two movies.

There are three film trailers. Nothing worth commenting on, as the trailers, for Born Free, Living Free and Running Free, are identical to the trailers packaged with the first movie.

This comes as part of the box set of the two The Gods Must Be Crazy movies, so there's no real decision to make. If you want the first movie, you get the second. Although it's quite pleasant, it would not warrant purchase or rental on its own.