‘Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit’ is a bit of an oddity for me, as the original Sister Act was simultaniously a film that I figured ‘Oh! it’d be EASY to do a sequel to this!’ while also thinking ‘Man; I dont really think they should do a sequel to this…’
Well, right or wrong, they did. and its Kinda sorta not as good as the original. but still does kinda sorta have enough going for it to keep me on board.
The plot picks up…well, thats actually kind of the first problem with this one honestly; I have NO idea how long its been since the original ‘Sister Act’, but it seems like…despite the ‘Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey’ style ending where Deloris was shown on the cover of ‘Rolling Stone’, ‘Time’ and many MANY different newspapers…Everyones forgotten that she single handedly saved a church from bankruptcy, took down one of Renos most deadliest gangsters AND transformed a failing church choir into one SO good, they gained an audience (and photoshoot) with the Pope…This is one of those films where you do just kind of have to go with the vibe and not ask too many questions, or your head’ll hurt.
Anyway; after the last film, Deloris has moved to Vegas for a residency in one of the smaller Casinos, and at one of her shows three of the Sister Mary’s turn up on an urgent mission. They inform Deloris that the Mother Superior has sent them to bring her to a Catholic school in San Francisco urgently. As it turns out that after the end of ‘Sister act’ both the Mother Superior and the three Marys transferred from the church to become teachers.
Deloris agrees to go, and on arriving it all becomes clear, the Mother Superior is at her wits end, informing Deloris that they came to the school specifically because they wanted to try and lead by the example Deloris set, and try to tackle an inner city school with a VERY disruptive student population, but they’ve found themselves trapped in a failing school, unable to connect with the students. So. Deloris once again goes undercover as Sister Mary, and joins the schools teaching staff as their new Music Teacher.
She discovers a deeply disconnected Student body, all dealing with their own problems and issues. But through the power of god and accapella music. Their worlds are about to be rock’d and/or Roll’d. That is until the school is told its going to be closing at the end of the semester due to budget cuts on behalf of the church. Leading Deloris to one final roll of the dice, a choir contest with a cash prize, to save the school, and bring meaning to the students lives.
To save some time, my main issues here are with the script itself. The direction, cine, performances and music are all pretty much to studio standard, maybe *slightly* less effective or memorable than the first Sister act…But then its uncommon for sequels to surpass their originals creatively.
No, my issues with ‘Sister Act 2’ are almost entirely script oriented. For a starters, I personally dont think the way they open this film would have been the route Deloris as a character would have gone through. She’s just established herself on a world stage as being a critically important choral arranger, and a key figure in revitalizing Catholocism in her locale. As a character, she almost certainly would have seized the opportunity to get into coaching, or production work, or even travelling around to different churchs helping fix their choirs…or hell, i’d have even believed it if they’d taken the Nuns on tour.
The idea that Deloris went through everything she went through in the first film, BEARING IN MIND, that the first film opened with her basically saying she was ‘done’ with lounge performing…only for this film to basically pick up with her binning off ALL the goodwill she’d built up, and an easy paycheque for life from the church…to do a mid-rent vegas residency…is frankly bizzare to me.
This is then immediately followed with THE most cringy ‘after school special’ establishing of a 90s class environment i’ve seen in a good while. Its awkward, feels forced, as if the writers had never actually SEEN school kids, letalone set foot in a school… and that didnt really endear me to any of the characters. It takes a lot of time for this film to really find its thread and what it wants to be doing, and dont get me wrong, when the choir competition plotline DOES finally appear, the film DOES find its footing and delivers a third act that, I’d argue IS probably better than the finale of the first film. But we have to get through a cringy and plothole riddled first act, and a kind of idling second act to get to that point.
The tones a bit more blunt here as well, they’re aiming more for comedy and the emphasis is off anything too bleak or unusual, which again I personally dont think works in this films favour. The school closing is a sort of high stakes thing within this worlds universe, but given the last film used a similar plotline with the church, and that was just running in the background, and barely mentioned, makes it hard to feel like the stakes are really THAT high…I mean, the worst case scenario is a group of kids, who hang out with each other after school, would have a slightly longer commute to another school. Rather than going to the one they either have no strong opinion on, or worse, actively dislike…and I know that the ‘music ass’ ends up becoming a student favourite. But we see clearly that all the other classes are horrendous.
The finale itself doesnt really feel satisfying either, its all a bit of a foregone conclusion. and the way the kids ‘save the school’ really reeks of someone who’s never been to a PTA budget meeting. (Mild spoilers) but the idea that a school board would choose to keep operating a school at a HUGE loss, purely because the music department won a state wide choir contest…is laughable at best.
The original Sister Act had problems defining their cast beyond the main three players, and here, if anything, its worse. Deloris is now being played as some kind of ‘all knowing’ wise person, who’s patient and forgiving…rather than a smart, but not someone who would suffer fools gladly, hustler, who can spy a good opportunity from a mile away, that she was in the first film.
Bringing the three Marys back was pretty pointless, as they’re basically only here in this film to stand in the background silently, and to VERY rarely throw a quip out…But thats about it. they’re seemingly here on ‘familiar face’ terratory only. The Mother Superior seems to get the best of the script, and she’s really only here to try and establish to the teaching staff that Deloris is a rogue operative, but to just let her cook. Which feels like a downgrade in my opinion.
The kids themselves, are 90s stereotypes come to life, every one of them is defined by ONE basic character trope, whether its being blunt to the point of being rude, being a rapper, being someone invested in cultural history, or makeup. they get the one personality trait and they run it into the ground in the most painfully early 90s way imaginable. It was So cringey to me in places I recoiled.
Mercifully however; the humour is still largely all here, they have raised the ‘stupid humour’ bar a bit, with less ‘lowest common denominator’ jokes and the quality of the gags is improved across the board.
I didnt ‘Hate’ ‘Sister Act 2’ but I did wonder why they made it the way they did. there was a LOT of other, more coherent angles they could have explored with this one. Hell; they could have explored THIS plot in a way that at least TRIED to tie it more to the original…But as it stands it borders on feeling like a pseudo sequel. A film that shares characters from the original, but not the universe. its…weird.
Im not saying I wouldnt watch it again, but I do think i’d need to be in a specific mindset to put it on.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sister-act-2-back-in-the-habit/
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