Young Guns II

As a kid I was a huge fan of Bon Jovi and the song "Blaze of Glory" was the only reason I watched this movie. They wanted to include "Wanted Dead or Alive" on the soundtrack for this movie, but Jon thought it had inappropriate lyrics and decided to write a new song especially for "Young Guns II", a new song that became one of his greatest hits. He even has a cameo appearance in the movie, so I definitely had to see it. And I'm glad I did. This stunning Western adventure drama tells the story about Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. It has an excellent cast, good characterization, story with depth, lots of entertaining action and awesome music, crowned with the legendary "Blaze of Glory". 8/10

This one is even better than the original. This one shows what happened to the gang after the first movie, and it tells how they finally ended up. Not as funny as the first one, it is nevertheless a good movie for other reasons. This movie does an even better job than the first one of portraying outlaws as young heroes, and I dare anyone to see it through to the end with dry eyes.

A journalist meets an old man out by the side of a road in the desert. The man tells him that he is Billy the Kid and that he wants his pardon. To prove that he is who he says he is, Billy tells the true story of his interaction with Pat Garrett. As a young man, Billy is tricked into giving himself over to the authorities before escaping with his old gang. However one of the gang, Pat, leaves to settle down before accepting a generous offer to become a sheriff and hunt Billy down. Looking back on it now, a sequel to Young Guns seems all very unnecessary – in fact it may even have been unnecessary at the time of release, I can't remember. This film uses a flashback approach to set up the main action, but manages to take away any drama out of whether or not Billy lives or dies (slightly messing up a well known story at the same time!). The telling of this version is quite slow at times but does have the odd touch of humour. The shoot outs only served to remind me of better westerns with similar situations. Much of the film's flaws come from it taking itself far too seriously, it should have been more fun but instead it is rather heavy and full of grandiose at times. Death scenes are overdone and overlong and the film itself could easily been edited tighter to be a much faster paced and enjoyable animal. The cast have a hand in this over-seriousness too, they play their characters without spark on the whole. Only Slater seems to be having fun, the rest think they are doing a worthy piece of cinema as opposed to a brat-pack sequel! Estevez is an average leading man here, but is worse when wearing the old makeup and speaking in a comedy croaky voice! Sutherland and Phillips both play it too seriously. Some big talent is wastes here as well; Petersen is good as Pat, in fact I'd say that he gives a better performance than the rest of the film deserves. Coburn is given an amusing cameo given that he played the most famous Pat Garrett (in my opinion), but he has nothing to really do other than show his face as an appropriate cameo. Other well known faces include Mortensen and Walter. The film lifts from the genre heavily and in the end it feels like a rather heavy retread of better movies. The material is too heavy and it is not as much fun as I expected it to be. The fact that it twists a famous legend is a problem for me and this type of film is not the place to try and do a serious rewrite of history – the montage conclusion is silly and the subtitles again reveal it to be taking itself all to seriously. It's an average film that is OK to watch but it really should have been more enjoyable than this.

No matter what people say, I think this sequel is very well written and scored. It may not be the best movie ever created, but some of the events that occurred in the sequel are fact based. i.e. the Bob Ollinger shotgun incident, Billy actually busted out the window and yelled a "Hello Bob!" before he emptied both barrels into Ollinger's head and chest. There are the Hollywood add-in's as in most movie production, but i thought it was worthy of praise. There will be people who say that sequels shouldn't be made, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I believe that as long as the sequel provides ample entertainment and you don't have 50 sequels on the same subject that sequels are fine. NOTE: For the last commenter, they didn't "kill" Billy in the first Young Guns, they stated that he was caught in the Old Fort Sumter by Sheriff Pat Garrett and killed, but we never actually see him die and according to the sequel and different accounts of what occurred over 100 years ago, we may never know exactly who is buried in William Bonney's grave except for the individual that is entombed there.

Whether or not the movie is 100% historically correct should be irrelevant in this film. The story of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County Regulators is so sketchy to begin with, it would be hard to pick through every piece made about it. Despite what may or may not be factual in this film... the movie really is a good one. It's even better than the first, with a better all-star cast, better writing, and better acting. Emelio Estivez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christian Slater, William Petersen!!! It doesn't get any better than that. They all deliver wonderful performances, and this movie will keep you on the edge of your seat, dodging bullets and laughing right along with "the gang." This movie is very entertaining, and even historical, even though a few points may be slightly off.