Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 10, 1993                   TAG: 9307100095
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO< CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T WASTE WEEKEND ON 'BERNIE'

It's a grainy, slapdash effort made to cash in on the surprise success of the 1989 original on home video. For those who, like me, skillfully avoided the first film, it's a comedy about a corpse. Bernie (Terry Kiser) was, apparently, some kind of swindler who was found out by two of his employees. Richard (Jonathan Silverman) plays straight man to the larcenous Larry's (Andrew McCarthy) get-rich-quick schemes.

As this film begins, Larry finds the key to Bernie's safety deposit box in St. Thomas, American Virgin Islands. He and Richard decide to pack ol' Bern up in a suitcase, take him on a little vacation and find out what is hidden in the box. Perhaps fans of the original will understand who the voodoo woman Mobu (Novella Nelson) is and why she knows about Bernie's loot. It's not explained here, but for whatever reasons, she sends Charles (Tom Wright) and Henry (Steve James) to New York to fetch Bernie's corpse.

Actually, the plot was just an excuse for writer/director Robert Klan to take his cast and crew to St. Thomas where, presumably, they had a grand old time for several weeks. If this one does as well on cable and cassette, we'll probably see "Bernie in Provence" and "Bernie Goes to Acapulco."

As the advertising has indicated, most of the humor is rough slapstick that turns the inanimate title character into a pin cushion, punching bag, etc. There's nothing particularly funny or inventive about that side of the film, but two other things do deserve some mention.

First, the treatment of the two black characters is so stereotyped that it verges on outright racism. Second, the MPAA ratings board must have lost its collective mind to give this thing a PG rating. Almost all of your favorite four-letter words are used, often loudly; the comic violence is pretty explicit; and a long scene near the beginning takes place in a Times Square porno theater.

Despite the rating, "Weekend at Bernie's II" is not a good film for kids. Or adults, for that matter.

Weekend at Bernie's II: * A TriStar production playing at the Salem Valley 8. 89 min. Rated PG for violence, strong language.