Young Guns II

Emilio and the gang are back, re-sparking the on-screen chemistry that made 1988’s Young Guns a box office hit. The all-star line up of this hot firing, quick witted sequel include the likes of Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid, Lou Diamond Phillips as the half Indian, half Mexican low-talking Jose, Keifer Sutherland as Doc and Christian Slater as Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh. Sarcastically surprising for a Hollywood flick, the storyline about Billy the Kid in this film isn’t entirely historically correct according to official records, with the movie taking very liberal chunks of poetic license so as to give us a far more entertaining watch. But come on, let's face it, we’re here to see some gun-blazin’ action, not a David Attenborough report, so let's continue.

The storyline for the sequel sort of lacks the originality of the first, but still packs a fair punch all the same. Billy the Kid (decades after his death no less) is no longer the spry smart-mouthed young kid that was seen in the first movie. This time around he’s a grizzly old man trying to convince a local lawyer that he really is Billy the Kid, that he deserves an official pardon from the governor, and that he never was killed by his old friend turned traitor Pat Garrett. Of course ninety minutes of an old man in Depends blabbing about the pardon he was denied would be pretty darned dull, so instead we rewind to the cliche flashback scenes where Billy the grandad explains his final showdown. This is when Emilio and the old gang re-unite for one more modern wild western adventure.

"I've been to gold towns, silver towns, I've even been to turquoise towns. But I have never been to a bat shit town. Can't wait to see the women!"

Arrgh, add this to the other box of dodgy tight-arsed Warner Brothers discs, for yet again we have another region 4 NTSC DVD. With that in mind the rest of the transfer isn’t too bad, considering it’s a decade old now. Film artefacts are a frequent occurrence, but not enough to distract anyone bar the toughest critic. The transfer in general is actually surprisingly sharp for the most part, which causes aliasing to rear its shaky head a couple times.

The film is presented with a ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16:9 widescreen enhanced. This is only a single layered disc, so there is no layer change. Again, this really should be a PAL converted film, but if we have to put up with what we’ve got then this isn’t an entirely bad transfer considering its age.

The audio is actually quite good for this film (although not superb) and is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as French 2.0. The English track is a pleasant listen, there are no audio sync problems and the surrounds and subwoofer get a reasonable work out.

Overall most of the work is done via the centre channel, but there are of course plenty of bullets flying around as well as a typical western musical score... oooh, and lets not forget Jon Bon Jovi’s Golden Globe winning Blaze of Glory, written with this movie in mind.

The extras are a little lack-lustre and include a small featurette with snippets from the film, behind the scenes footage, and some cast and crew interviews. The other addition is a stock-standard theatrical trailer... and that wraps it all up. Considering Warner couldn’t even put in the effort to give us a PAL disc I hadn’t really expected much of a line up for extras, but at least this is better than nothing.

Young Guns II lacks a bit of the muscle, magic, and originality of the first film but still delivers an enjoyable 90 minutes of gun-slinging action. Young Guns brought westerns back to Hollywood, the genre that once dominated the industry was re-introduced after death and given a whole new lease of life. Young Guns II stays true to that and provides some quick laughs and edge of the seat action that should keep most viewers entertained.