Ernest Goes to Africa (dir. John R. Cherry III, 1997)
Ernest is working as a mechanic somewhere in Ohio, and wants to impress Rene with a gift. He buys some gems at a craft fair and fashions them into a yo-yo. The gems, however, are ultra-rare African tribal stones that are being pursued by an evil SPECTRE-like criminal organization led by Jamie Bartlett. They kidnap Rene and Ernest, thinking they are secret agents, and take them to Africa… do you really want to know the stories of these things? The stories are incidental. Let’s get to the important question. Is it funny?
Well, not really. Varney is allowed to do his multiple personality schtick in this film more than he has in the previous few, imitating a grumpy old lady and, somewhat offensively, an Indian servant named Hey-Yu. He wears brownface. In one scene, he puts his fingers in an alligator’s nostrils. He falls down a lot. Again, I respect Varney’s commitment, but the film is too loose and incoherent to enjoy. A long portion of the film is Varney and Kash on the lam from criminals, and they improvise and banter with energy and wit, but it never gels or grows. It’s just the two of them dithering around in a somewhat funny manner. To be fair, this is the first Ernest film wherein he equally shares screentime with another equally broad cartoon creation, and Kash can hold her own.
I’ll admit, the scene where Ernest launches ostrich eggs out of the back of a moving pickup truck, using a stretchy DD-cup brassiere as a catapult made me laugh a little bit. Largely because now I think I want to try that. Anyone got a DD-cup brassiere, a pickup truck, and about fifty ostrich eggs I can borrow?
Yes, there is plotting about returning the yo-yo gems to their rightful owner, the evilness of the bad guy, and the corrupt African government, but it’s all, as I said, incidental. Here’s an odd choice; in a film called Ernest Goes to Africa, there are no scenes of fish-out-of-water culture shock. Like where Ernest encounters local customs, and reacts like a clueless American redneck. When Police Academy went to Moscow, there was culture shock. When Shaft went to Africa, there was culture shock. Ernest is so clueless, and so wrapped up in the plot, that there’s no culture shock in Ernest Goes to Africa. Weird, right?
We have one last stop…
