Meatballs Part II

Plot

This in-name-only sequel to the first Meatballs summer camp movie sets us at Camp Sasquatch and revolves around two main plots. The owner of Sasquatch, Giddy, tries to keep his camp open after Hershey, the owner of Camp Patton located just across the lake, wants to buy the entire lake for Camp Patton. Giddy suggests settling the issue with the traditional end-of-the-summer boxing match over rights to the lake. A tough, inner city punk named Flash is at Camp Sasquatch for community service as a counselor-in-training. Flash is recruited to box in order to save Sasquatch. The second main subplot involves Cheryl. She is a naive teen whom Flash sets his sights on. Cheryl's teenage girl co-campers arrange for Cheryl to see a man naked after she confesses she's never seen a "pinky." A recurring subplot throughout the movie is the campers hiding an alien from the adults. The alien, dropped off by his parents to learn Earth culture, is called "Meathead" by the kids (after he repeated one of them saying "Me, Ted").

Cast

Reception

Meatballs Part II grossed $2,515,268 the first week-end. The film grossed $5,410,972 domestically overall.

Critical response

Critic Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times wrote in his review: "Trailing bits of Rocky and E.T. and using a plot device from the 1983 film Screwballs, which itself aspired to be Porky's, Meatballs Part II shares with 1979's Meatballs not much more than a summer camp setting. This time - amid the efforts of two senior counselors to find sexual privacy, amid prurience and budding romance involving an innocent blonde preppy and a young punk given a choice of a counselor's job or reform school, and amid the efforts of some of the little campers to harbor an extraterrestrial - the future of Camp Sasquatch is in peril.

On Rotten Tomatoes, Meatballs Part II has only received two critics' reviews – both of which were negative. Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times said, "Pallid writing, awkward acting, familiar situations and tired jokes make the morons, wimps and losers of Meatballs Part II easy to pass up." TV Guide reported, "The difference between this movie and the original is Bill Murray, whose charm gave the first film its best moments and raised the mediocre plot into something mindless but sweet." Meanwhile, 675 users have scored the movie with an average of 2.5 out of 5; only 23% of those users reported liking "Meatballs Part II."

Release

Meatballs Part II was released in theatres on July 27, 1984. The film was released on DVD on March 4, 2011, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.