A Bunch More Fun Brady Sequel Is Silly Entertainment

Never having been a particular fan of “The Brady Bunch” on TV, I’m still getting over the astonishing fact that there has been one “Brady” movie. So imagine my amazement to discover that - just a year and a half later - there is a second “Brady” film to contend with.

It’s called “A Very Brady Sequel,” and I must admit that, all things considered, it’s not bad. In fact, I liked it almost as much as the first one, which I thought was vaguely enjoyable, if somewhat too long.

For the “Brady”-deprived, I should explain that “The Brady Bunch” was a puerile sitcom of the early ‘70s that focused on television’s first blended family. The family was the result of the marriage of Carol, a woman with three daughters, to Mike, a man with three sons.

The new film features the return of Carol Brady’s presumed-dead first husband, who suddenly shows up one day at the Brady homestead, having been suffering from amnesia. Or I should say that a man claiming to be her first husband shows up claiming to have had amnesia.

Get it?

As in last year’s “The Brady Bunch Movie,” much of the humor in the sequel results from collision of the Bradys, whose perspective is thoroughly ‘50s, with the world of the ‘90s. Mike, for example, thinks he’s the victim of a hoax when someone tries to sell him cable TV.

Fifty channels through a little wire? No way!

And, once again, it’s funny in a gruesome sort of way that the family’s fashion sense is stuck in the ‘70s. It isn’t always easy to look at their clothes, but if your stomach is strong enough, you’ll laugh. (Just thinking about their bell-bottom pants and platform shoes is giving me the willies.)

Shelley Long has actually improved on her portrayal of the pert and plastic Carol. Her perky voice sounds almost audioanimatronic, which is just perfect.

Also somewhat disembodied-sounding is Gary Cole, as Mike, Carol’s architect husband. The frizzy-haired Brady patriarch is full of fatherly advice, the point of which is often unclear, all-too-obvious or, somehow, both at once.

“Kids are like little people,” Mike explains, “only younger.”

Speaking of kids, the girls and boys from the first film return to play the Brady children. Christine Taylor and Christopher Daniel Barnes appear as Marcia and Greg, the oldest ones; Jennifer Elise Cox and Paul Sutera are Jan and Peter, the middle kids; and Olivia Hack and Jesse Lee are Cindy and Bobby, the family’s babies.

A subplot involving Marcia and Greg flirts with incest and would seem almost scandalous if it were possible to take any of this seriously. (Which, of course, it is not.) Eventually - through one of those improbable plot developments so common in “Brady”like sitcoms - the whole bunch eventually ends up in Hawaii.

Rounding out the principal cast are Henriette Mantel as Alice, the good-ol’-gal Brady housekeeper who uses scoopfuls of lard in her meatloaf, and Tim Matheson as the man who says he is Carol’s first husband. (Wink, wink.)

David Spade pops up in a cameo as Carol’s new hairdresser, and Richard Belzer appears in more-or-less his “Homicide: Life on the Street” cop role. As in the first film, there are also surprise cameos by old TV stars.

While the stars of “The Brady Bunch Movie” are back, neither its director, Betty Thomas, nor its screenwriters are. Replacing them are director Arlene Sanford (“Dream On,” “Friends”) and four new screenwriters, who pick up on the pastel spirit of the series and shade it with appropriately campy tones.

Bradyholics, of course, already have plans to buy tickets. Non-Bradyholics may be interested too - that is, if they somehow didn’t get quite enough of the famous family the last time around.

Perhaps the nicest thing to be said for the two “Brady” movies is that, flawed though they may be, each is at least 10 times more entertaining than even the very best episode of the old TV series.

To paraphrase Mike Brady, the movies are like big episodes, only better.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “A Very Brady Sequel” Locations: Lyons, East Sprague, Showboat cinemas. Credits: Directed by Arlene Sanford, starring Shelley Long, Gary Cole, Tim Matheson Running time: 1:30 Rating: PG-13