The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)

You know that mate who shows up to a dinner party wearing a T-shirt printed to look like a dinner suit, pipe in hand, blowing soap bubbles across the room? That's The Gods Must Be Crazy II. It has absolutely no intention of being anything other than exactly what it is, and somehow, against most reasonable expectations, that ends up being enough.

This is part of my A-Z World Movie Tour, and Botswana brought me here. What a destination it turned out to be. Because what we've got is a South African comedy tornado, a film operating at a frequency somewhere between a Saturday morning cartoon and a fever dream, with sped-up chase sequences, sound effects that feel lifted wholesale from a Looney Tunes vault, and a fake rhino that looks like it was stitched together from garden gnomes and optimism. It is, in the most affectionate possible sense, absolutely unhinged.

The moment that really sealed it for me: a character dangling from a low-flying aeroplane, legs windmilling frantically to match the aircraft's speed. It's a live-action cartoon gag, pure and simple, the kind of thing that shouldn't work at all and yet had me genuinely cackling. There's a commitment to the physical comedy here that you just don't see anymore. The cast throws themselves into the chaos with such obvious enthusiasm that it becomes infectious. Nobody's winking at the camera exactly, but everyone seems to know precisely what kind of film they're making, and they're all delighted to be in it.

The slapstick is relentless in a way that's almost exhausting, but it keeps landing. Partly because the timing is sharper than the film's rough edges would suggest, and partly because the sheer audacity of some of the gags carries you through any lulls. That rhino alone. I cannot stress this enough. The audacity of that rhino.

Now, to be clear, this is not a film for all moods. It asks very little of you intellectually, and that's fine, genuinely fine, but you do need to meet it on its own terms. Come to it looking for something grounded or emotionally weighty and you'll be baffled. Come to it on a relaxed evening with a glass of wine in hand and something ridiculous on your mind, and it delivers. I'd watch it again under exactly those conditions without a second thought.

What strikes me most, looking back, is how well it works as a time capsule. This is '80s comedy doing what '80s comedy did best when it wasn't trying to be anything else: broad, bright, cheerfully absurd, and entirely unashamed. It reminds me a little of Nightmare City in that way, a film where the technical limitations become part of the charm rather than a barrier to it. When you can feel the budget straining at the seams and the film just leans harder into the madness rather than apologising for it, there's something genuinely loveable about that.

Is it a great film? No. Is it a good film? Depends entirely on your tolerance for slapstick chaos and prop rhinos. But is it a gloriously daft, full-commitment comedy that earns its laughs through sheer brazen enthusiasm? Absolutely, yes. Three stars, and every one of them is for the bit.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 1989  | Watched: 2025-05-31

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads · Artiflix
Rent: Amazon Video
Buy: Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Artiflix
Rent: Amazon Video
Buy: Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon US

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