Young Guns II
Young Guns II
Billy "The Kid" and his gang are wanted by the law, and when "Doc" Scurlock and Chavez are captured, Billy has to save them. They escape and set south for Mexico. "Let's hire a thief to catch one", John S. Chisum said, so he paid Pat Garrett, one of Billy's former partners, $1000 for the killing of William H. Bonney aka Billy "The Kid".
Jacob O’Neal reviewedJuly 1, 2025
The first rule in Hollywood since the 70’s: if the movie turns a profit then we need a sequel. I remember when they used to think sequels were shameful and devoid of creativity. Although I am not a fan of every sequel in a given franchise, I can appreciate when a sequel tries to keep things fresh. Young Guns II tried to do just that. In the early to mid part of the 20th century an old man claimed to be Billy the Kid, stating that Pat Garrett never killed him, that it was someone else. He claims he’d been living under an assumed name since then and still never left New Mexico. The sequel takes that idea and starts with Emilio Estevez in some rather convincing old man make up taking to a young Bradley Witford about the events leading up to that fateful day when people believed he died. It was an interesting way to play the story and leave it open for more sequels, likely without much of the original cast. But there are always new young stars in Hollywood. In fact, this time they got Christian Slater and Casey Siemazko of one of the greatest high school movies ever - Three O’Clock High. Directing duties this time went the director the Emilio Estevez/Mick Jagger stinker Freejack.
Here’s the cool thing about the movie - I didn’t fall into the trappings many sequels do, where they take what worked and do it again but a little bigger and it’s set in a different location. They didn’t try to re-invent the wheel with this sequel, but they did take worked and made it even better, not bigger. Sure, you have a cameo from Jon Bon Jovi and William Peterson took over the role of Pat Garrett when it was someone else the first time. But Bon Jovi’s song, Blaze Of Glory, was perfect for the movie and William Peterson is a great actor and killed it in the role. Is this a perfect sequel? No. It’s not Empire Strikes Back, T2 or Godfather 2 even. This is fun popcorn movie that improves on the first one in many ways that plays with true claims that we’re all but forgotten about before 1990 when this movie hit theaters.