“So we can’t kill them off, that would be frowned upon,” Patrick says as he thumbs through the contracts for Rich and Poe Jrs. “Time machine?” Jamie suggests unhelpfully, but Patrick has to admit, aging them up via time travel must be considered. Particularly since they’ve kind of lost the thread on whether they are attempting to make something unironically good, ironically bad… or maybe neither. At the very least they realized that the nut shots, fart jokes, and giant piles of poo being shoved in people’s faces needed to stop. As they walk to a nearby food truck still pondering their predicament they observe a few rad social media celebs making a new video for Tik Tok or some shit. Cast in a new comedy by the studio hoping to cash in on their big time tween followings, they couldn’t really act. But Jamie and Patrick had to admit that the singing, dancing, and backflipping reminded them a little of what made Rich and Poe so fresh and dope in their first entry. “If only they could be Rich and Poe, Jrs., right?” Jamie says with a chuckle, but Patrick isn’t laughing. “Rich and Poe Jrs. contracts don’t mention anything about additional casting, right?” Jamie looks confused, but there is a twinkle in Patrick’s eye. The next day the Rich and Poe set looks more like a music video than a major motion picture. A couple of the Tik Tok gang are now portraying Richie and PJ, Poe’s older set of twins. But singing and dancing aren’t all they are going to be doing, as they’ve returned the film to its PG-13 roots with Richie and PJ having to take up the mantle of Rich and Poe as the department’s newest young guns. That’s right! We are watching the sequel to Young Guns (which barely doesn’t qualify for BMT), Young Guns II. The days of the major motion picture western starring a group of up and comers is far behind us at this point, let alone one that spawns a sequel. This is why it’s part of our 90’s Wild Card cycle as this feels like a distinctly 90’s phenomenon. All the worse for BMT. Let’s go!
Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory (1990) – BMeTric: 17.2; Notability: 52
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 36.8%; Notability: top 10.9%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 26.7% Higher BMeT: Rocky V, Ghost Dad, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, Wings of the Apache, 3 Men and a Little Lady, RoboCop 2, Navy Seals, Ernest Goes to Jail, Hard to Kill, Air America, Desperate Hours, Another 48 Hrs., Days of Thunder, The Rookie, Men at Work, The Guardian, Bird on a Wire, Marked for Death, The Forbidden Dance, and 16 more; Higher Notability: RoboCop 2, Predator 2, Days of Thunder, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Jetsons: The Movie, Air America; Lower RT: Ghost Dad, Spaced Invaders, Wings of the Apache, Meet the Applegates, Where the Heart Is, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, Heart Condition, Ernest Goes to Jail, Opportunity Knocks, Air America, Everybody Wins, Brain Dead, Too Much Sun, Graffiti Bridge, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Navy Seals, Another 48 Hrs., Short Time, Stella, Sibling Rivalry and 19 more; Notes: That is mighty close to a cult classic right there. It hit 6.6 a little bit ago! That is rather high, no wonder the BMeTric has been dropping like a stone. The notability it excellent, they really pulled out all the stops for this young guns (intended) back in the early 90s huh?
RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – Actors often are advised to meditate on the characters they play, to get inside their skins and understand what makes them the way they are. “Young Guns II” presents the strange spectacle of actors who have apparently done more of that than the filmmakers have – so that we sense there’s more to these people than meets the eye. The screenplay feels unfinished, the direction is ambling, but the performances are interesting.
(Interesting. That gives me some hope I’ll like the movies since I tend to like the actors involved. So if the performances by the likeable actors are the best part, than that should make it okay in the end.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-FmfxLy7fo/
(Actually looks pretty good given you’ve seen the first. It is more gritty that the poster or perception of a 1990 western might suggest, but that is in line with the style of the first film. I can’t help but like Estevez’s giggly portrayal of Billy the Kid as well. Funny there is no mention of the bookend segments at all.)
Directors – Geoff Murphy – (Known For: The Quiet Earth; Fortress 2; Goodbye Pork Pie; Utu; Never Say Die; Spooked; Future BMT: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory; Freejack; BMT: Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory; Notes: Received the Order of Merit from the New Zealand government for his contributions to film.)
Writers – John Fusco (characters & written by) – (Known For: Spirit Riding Free; The Highwaymen; Hidalgo; The Forbidden Kingdom; Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron; Young Guns; Thunderheart; Crossroads; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny; The Babe; Loch Ness; Future BMT: The Shack; BMT: Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory; Notes: Travelled the American South as a blues musician before going back to school to become a screenwriter. Apparently has a black belt in kung fu.)
Actors – Emilio Estevez – (Known For: The Outsiders; The Breakfast Club; Mission: Impossible; St. Elmo’s Fire; Young Guns; Stakeout; Badlands; The Way; Repo Man; Bobby; The Public; Tex; The War at Home; Never on Tuesday; Sand; The L.A. Riot Spectacular; Los reyes magos; Future BMT: D3: The Mighty Ducks; Freejack; Another Stakeout; Men at Work; Arthur and the Invisibles; D2: The Mighty Ducks; Loaded Weapon 1; The Mighty Ducks; Nightmares; Judgment Night; That Was Then… This Is Now; BMT: Maximum Overdrive; Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor for Maximum Overdrive in 1987; Notes: For most of the 2000s he was pretty much exclusively a director. He just appeared in the Disney+ sequel series to Mighty Ducks though, and is apparently going to direct and star in a third Young Guns Film called Guns 3: Alias Billy the Kid … WTF?)
Kiefer Sutherland – (Known For: A Few Good Men; Stand by Me; The Lost Boys; A Time to Kill; Melancholia; Dark City; Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me; Young Guns; Monsters vs. Aliens; At Close Range; Flatliners; Phone Booth; Freeway; The Vanishing; Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces; The Reluctant Fundamentalist; To End All Wars; Bright Lights, Big City; Twelve; Forsaken; Future BMT: The Wild; Mirrors; The Sentinel; Taking Lives; Renegades; The Cowboy Way; Eye for an Eye; The Three Musketeers; The Nutcracker Prince; BMT: Zoolander 2; Marmaduke; Flatliners; Pompeii; Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for Pompeii in 2015; Notes: Son of Donald Sutherland he was often associated with the Brat Pack of the late 80s. Settled into being one of the most famous television actors of the 2000s starring in 24, Designated Survivor, and now the new Fugitive series.)
Lou Diamond Phillips – (Known For: Young Guns; La Bamba; Stand and Deliver; The 33; Courage Under Fire; The Big Hit; Another Day in Paradise; Sky; Demon Wind; Picking Up the Pieces; Disorganised Crime; Filly Brown; Stark Raving Mad; Absolon; Route 666; Shadow of the Wolf; S.I.S.: Extreme Justice; Teresa’s Tattoo; A Show of Force; Sanitarium; Future BMT: Renegades; The First Power; Brokedown Palace; BMT: Bats; Supernova; Hollywood Homicide; Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for The Crossroads of History. Apparently is a musician playing with the band The Pipefitters with Lou Diamond Phillips, and was one of the final few actors considered to replace David Duchovny in seasons 8 and 9 of the X-files.)
Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $44,143,410 (Worldwide: $44,143,410)
(Not bad, but I imagine the original made a lot more … huh, nope, it made basically exactly the same amount, $45 million. So I have to assume the absence of a completed trilogy is due to Estevez not being interested, or the plotline precluding such a possibility (which seems unlikely).)
Rotten Tomatoes – 35% (6/17)
(I’ll have to make a consensus: Something feels off about this as compared to the predecessor, as if they half wrote the film and let the actors fill in the rest. Reviewer Highlight: [W]henever a few of the Young Guns get together and have to behave like soulful cowboys, the movie stops dead in its tracks. The trouble with so many of today’s young actors is that there’s no deep-seated yearning or fury in their performances. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)
Poster – Young Sklogs 2: Sklogs with Attitude
(Everytime I tried to make a pun on the title it came out sounding like the title of a porn movie. Starting a film with the word “young” is just bad news. Anyway, weird poster. Spacing is weird, the color scheme is kinda weird, and a bunch of the actors look kinda weird. The font is OK, though. C-.)
Tagline(s) – The West just got wilder. (C)
(Even wilder than the first! I can’t believe it. If the point is just to get people into the seats without talking their ear off, then this is serviceable. But not much better than that.)
Keyword – cowboy
Top 10: Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood (2019), Tombstone (1993), Brokeback Mountain (2005), No Country for Old Men (2007), News of the World (2020), The Outsiders (1983), The Big Lebowski (1998), Boogie Nights (1997), The Hateful Eight (2015), Dances with Wolves (1990)
Future BMT: 47.1 Serving Sara (2002), 46.2 Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again (1980), 45.7 Bad Girls (1994), 35.5 Playmobil: The Movie (2019), 33.9 Hoot (2006), 31.9 Armed and Dangerous (1986), 31.5 Lightning Jack (1994), 30.9 All the Pretty Horses (2000), 30.7 A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), 29.1 Hope Floats (1998);
BMT: The Lone Ranger (2013), Ghost Rider (2007), Wild Wild West (1999), Jonah Hex (2010), Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory (1990), Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
(Interestings hardly any of the future BMT choices are traditional Westerns like this one. Bad Girls might genuinely be the only one, with A Million Ways to Die in the West being a comedic version of it. Interesting resurgences in the 00s, but the genre does seem to be fairly small potatoes at this point despite still having prestige.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 19) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Lou Diamond Phillips is No. 3 billed in Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory and No. 11 billed in Hollywood Homicide, which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 2 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => 3 + 11 + 2 + 3 = 19. If we were to watch Eye for an Eye we can get the HoE Number down to 12.
Notes – The scene where Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh (Christian Slater) puts a knife through Chavez’ arm was added due to Lou Diamond Phillips’ breaking his arm during filming.
Emilio Estevez (Billy) originally approached Jon Bon Jovi to ask him for permission to include the song “Wanted Dead Or Alive” on the soundtrack. Bon Jovi didn’t feel the songs lyrics were appropriate; however, he was inspired by the project and resolved to write a new song for the film that would be more in keeping with the period and setting. He quickly wrote the song “Blaze of Glory”, and performed it on acoustic guitar in the New Mexico desert for Estevez and John Fusco.
Lou Diamond Phillips (Chavez) was dragged by a spooked horse when filming a new scene. He broke his arm and a kneecap. The horse was spooked when Emilio Estevez (Billy) fired a gun and threw Lou off. The horse then ran, dragging Lou by the noose around Lou’s neck and tied to the saddle horn. The scene was never re-filmed. Lou talks about this incident on Celebrity Close Calls (2010).
There were only three witnesses to the alleged killing of Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett: Garrett himself and Deputies John W. Poe (Viggo Mortensen) and Thomas McKinney. While McKinney claimed to slightly know the Kid, Poe had never previously laid eyes on him. Within moments after the shooting, Poe told Garrett he had “shot the wrong man”. Since it was too dark in the room for a visual identification, Garrett claimed he knew it was the Kid by his voice, even though all present had only heard whispers. Ultimately both Poe and McKinney agreed with Garrett, but McKinney recanted years later and claimed, like Poe before him, that Garrett had killed someone else.
The Mexican Blackbird, the biracial prostitute that Billy talks about, is a ZZ Top song from 1975.
Although the movie depicts Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as close friends who were at one time partners in crime this is a considerable stretching of the truth. In reality their association was much more casual in nature stemming from their mutual patronage of Beaver Smith’s saloon in Fort Sumner where they were both avid players of the card game Casino. They had a cordial acquaintance with one another but were never close friends, nor did they ever ride together as outlaws.
On New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s last day in office, he discounted any and all claims of “Brushy” Bill Roberts claim to be Billy the Kid.
This is the second western movie for which Alan Silvestri composed music in 1990. The first was Back to the Future Part III (1990).
The real Jose Chavez Y Chavez also survived the Lincoln County wars, dying peacefully in 1923.
The real Josiah Gordon “Doc” Scurlock did not die during the Lincoln County Wars. He passed away in 1929 of old age, having spent much of his life trying to disassociate himself with his past.
Before the end credits roll post scripts are given for Dave Raudabaugh, Pat Garrett and Brushy Bill however, none are given for Doc or Chavez – this is because both survived beyond the scope of this film.
Awards – Nominee for the Oscar for Best Music, Original Song (Jon Bon Jovi, 1991)
Bad Movie Twins 