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Barely a month after Smell of Fear hit theaters , Abrahams and Proft (over at 20th Century Fox) came up with their own spoof series launcher: Hot Shots! A parody of the military movie genre (and Top Gun in particular), it also debuted at number one, spent three additional weekends there and did well enough to secure a sequel that arrived just prior to Memorial Day weekend 1993. The performance of Hot Shots! Part Deux suggests that, unlike the further adventures of Frank Drebin, not as many were clamoring to follow Topper Harley back into action. Deux opened to less than Hot Shots!, finished behind the Sharon Stone sex (would-be) thriller Sliver and faded from sight quickly, taking in barely half of what the first film did.

While using the same characters (or at least their names) and actors, Abrahams and Proft also attempted to switch up the game, focusing their comic lasers on the Rambo series and other ridiculously violent shoot-em-ups, which are so inherently overblown that they can often seem like parodies of themselves, and not the easiest targets for ridicule. Harley is once again a loner shielding himself from the outside world, pulled back into a top secret mission at his government’s behest, and Lloyd Bridges, who played screwy Navy admiral “Tug” Benson in the first film, has upgraded to incumbent U.S. president (as well as to second billing behind Sheen), and in a fine bit of comic alchemy appears to be channeling Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41 simultaneously. His flighty first scene in The Oval Office is his best moment.

However, when it comes to the finale, in which Benson does solo battle with Hussein himself, it becomes clear that a little of the character goes a long way and it isn’t particularly amusing to see a mano y mano between them just because it’s Lloyd Bridges and he’s, you know, old. Harley, meanwhile, is tasked with rescuing a political prisoner played by Rowan Atkinson who shows up briefly in the final 15 minutes and is given very little chance to be funny. And yet, Part Deux moves along briskly over most of its hour-and-a-half running time finding laughs in its opening sequence portraying Saddam as a domestic type - my exception to the political humor being less funny - before unexpectedly segueing into a Scarface lampoon; mining cheap and funny laughs from the effects of an attractive female on the monks at the monastery where Topper is living; and in ridiculing a no holds barred bare-knuckle brawl that Topper takes to earn cash on the side.

If Sheen and Bridges deliver steady but never overpowering laughs, then the supporting cast is unexpectedly rich in comic ability. Miguel Ferrer puts a comic spin on his usual intense machismo and sarcasm, Golino validates the idea that an attractive individual saying and doing ridiculous things may be funnier than a person of average looks doing so and Richard Crenna pretty much plays the same character he did in the first three Rambo movies, proving that sometimes comedy is all about the context.

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