Wayne's World 2 - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

“Take me, Garth.”
“Where? I’m low and gas and you need a jacket.”

When you’ve got a hit, you’ve got to repeat it twice as hard with a higher budget. On paper, Wayne’s World was a risky venture for Paramount. SNL projects didn’t exactly have a long-standing cinematic pedigree. After The Blues Brothers, there wasn’t a film based on SNL characters for 12 years until Mike Myers and Dana Carvey’s cable-access heroes went on their cinematic adventure and it became a massive hit. 

After a $183 Million global haul in the bank, Paramount wanted a sequel ready for the screen in time for the Christmas 1993 cinematic rush. With a new director, Stephen Surjik, but lacking a script or even a plot - Mike Myers and his writing team Bonnie and Terry Turner gave it their best shot. Originally meant to be a loose remake of Passport to Pimlico, this sequel had to do a late-game rewrite of the entire film due to rights issues. Instead of being something in the vein of Myer’s later cinematic output, Wayne’s World 2 became something of a rehash of the original film with a slightly different coat of paint so it wasn’t 100% the same feature all over again. Unfortunately, it barely pulled in a third of the first film’s domestic haul after getting clobbered over the Christmas holiday.  

When Wayne’s World 2 is at its best, it’s when it’s got something new to do. When it’s at its worst, you can feel it because you’ve already seen it. Ralph Brown as the spaced-out roadie Del Preston is a hilarious addition to the film generating genuine laughs as a spiritual version of his Withnail and I character Danny. Kim Bassinger as the femme fatale Honey Hornée trying to woo Garth into a murder plot à la Double Indemnity is a gut buster. James Hong playing Cassandra’s protective traditionalist father who gets into a fully-dubbed kung-fu fight with Mike Myers is still a hoot. And this film is the reason The Village People saw a resurgence in popularity at my middle school thanks to the hilarious YMCA scene. The rest? Just isn’t as funny, in fact, most of Wayne’s character plotline is rather boring. Tia Carrere returns but is given less to do. You know it’s rough when even Christopher Walken looks like he’s having a hard time staying awake. But hey, at least we get the first big-screen appearance of Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel as obnoxious concert nerds!

I was in the sixth grade when this film came out and I loved it in theaters and loved it more on tape. Watching this again at 43 after many years away from it felt like a nostalgic bitchslap. I honestly can’t recall the last time I watched this movie all the way through but I was excited to see it again. I’m pleased that a lot of it still holds up, the Waynestock bits and training the roadies are hilarious, but other pieces where I thought I’d laugh again were just crickets. When it’s original and inspired, it’s hilarious. When it has to recycle old material, it’s pretty sluggish. 

Thankfully, enough fun pieces pop up that there’s some hilarity and energy to keep you invested. It’s funny when it really wants to be. Ultimately Wayne’s World 2 is a tough case of a rushed production made under unfortunate circumstances. I have a hunch that the originally intended plot wouldn’t have worked much better. That idea seemed more tuned-in for a Mike Myers solo feature than a Wayne and Garth SNL adventure. As it stands, a little more time to develop this story instead of being rushed to contend against a slew of 1993 Christmas box office heavyweights might have yielded better results. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Kino Lorber Studio Classics gives fans a reason to party on with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray release of Wayne’s World 2. A BD100 disc is reserved for the 4K version (but only uses about 71 gigs of that) with a Region A BD50 secured for the 1080p. The discs are housed in a standard two-disc black case with reversible insert art, and the classic poster art serves as the slipcover. The discs load to static-image main menus with standard navigation options. 

KLSC delivers a fitting 2160p Dolby Vision (and HDR10) transfer of Wayne’s World 2. Watching this alongside the first film, I’d say they’re neck-and-neck presentations, visually. I don’t have the old Blu-ray to compare to, but I’m very pleased with the appearance here. Details are sharp and clear when and where necessary. Facial features, crazy hair stylings, and the film’s production design all come through well enough. Film grain is fine without calling too much attention to itself. Clarity can take a little dip around optical effects, subtitles ahead of the kung-fu fight is a notable example, but otherwise nothing serious. Elements are in great shape without speckling or scratches. No horrible signs of smoothing or DNR and no unsightly edge-enhancement artifacts. The Dolby Vision grade isn’t overly aggressive, but color saturation looks right on point with strong primaries and healthy skin tones. For some of the bigger concert scenes or when Wayne’s spacious loft apartment is being well utilized, there’s a nice sense of three-dimensional depth to the image. Black levels are solid with healthy shadows and the bitrate is a pretty strong average for a film like this. As Paramount did the restoration and mastering, Kino delivered a fine disc. Not a showstopper, but on par with Wayne’s World. If you were happy with that disc you should be pleased with this one.

For our listening pleasure, this release of Wayne’s World 2 comes home with DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1 audio tracks. Again, I don’t have the old Blu-ray as a comparison, that old disc came with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track that after reading some reviews didn’t sound all that amazing. With that, I’m quite pleased with the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track here, more so than the included 2.0. It might not be the most aggressive 5.1 track ever but for the big concert sequences, YMCA, the Kung-fu fight, the funny use of Mrs. Robinson, channel spread through the soundscape delivered the goods. A lot of the track remains fairly Front/Center loaded but where it counts most, there’s enough activity punching around to give a nice feeling for imaging and movement. However, that does mean scenes with Aerosmith often sound the best, so that might be a negative for some folks out there. Sampling the 2.0 track for key sequences was nice enough. I didn't get the vibe that it was a mixdown, but it's also not a show-stopper. The key songs sounded great and the more active scenes were handled nicely, but I felt the 5.1 was just a stronger, more enjoyable presence overall.

On the bonus features front, there’s not a lot here, at least nothing new anyway. We get the old Director commentary track which is informative but Surjik has a lot of long pauses and some of the trivia bits just aren’t all that insightful or exciting. It's a take-it-or-leave-it track. Then there’s the short 14-minute making-of which feels more like EPK soundbite bits than a dedicated featurette. The theatrical trailer is available, so I guess that’s a one-up on the old Blu-ray but not much of one. 

4K UHD 

• Audio Commentary featuring Stephen Surjik

Blu-ray

• Audio Commentary featuring Stephen Surjik
• Extreme Close-Up (SD 14:06)
• Theatrical Trailer 
• US TV Spots
• UK TV Spots
• KLSC Trailer Gallery

There are plenty of bad sequels out there, and thankfully Wayne’s World 2 isn’t among the worst. It has that distinction of being entertaining, fairly fun with some good laughs, but still far from reaching the heights of the original. In this case, that’s largely because of the terrible preproduction time constraints to get a finished film in theaters for the Christmas 1993 season. When it’s fresh and new, it’s hilarious and worth every minute. When it’s retreading old material, well, at least that gives you time to freshen up your drink or go visit the restroom and not miss anything important. On 4K UHD, it makes something of the same visual waves on 4K Dolby Vision as the first feature. Nice details, healthy colors, good sound, but bonus features aren’t a whole lot to schwing about. If you’re a fan, you’ll probably find this a nice release. If you didn’t love this sequel in 1993, 32 years probably won’t change your mind. Worth A Look