Still Waiting - A 'background' comedy

The first 'Waiting' film was a 'cult classic.' Okay, that may be a little generous when you consider other 'similar' cult classics include movies like 'Clerks' and 'Office Space,' while 'Waiting' (although fun) was definitely not up to those standards.  It charted a day in the life of a group of restaurant staff and was - believe it or not - headed by Ryan Reynolds.  It was all good, light-hearted adult humour and if you've ever worked in the service industry you'll definitely be sympathetic to the waiters and waitresses' plight.  Then they made the sequel.

Of course Ryan moved on to bigger and better things and we're left with a whole load of unfamiliar faces which we sort of recognise from one B-movie, or that TV show that we can't quite remember the name of.  Justin Long pops up again and reprises his role, but it's basically just a cameo and, if you believe what you read on the internet, he wasn't very happy with the production.  Again, the story tells the tale of a day in the life of the staff at a restaurant, however this time it's vying for popularity against another eatery next door, only this one uses scantily-clad waitresses to bring in a certain demographic of diners.

There are plenty of characters in the film and therefore not even half of them are as well-developed as they could probably have been.  In fact, the majority of them are stereotypes, but - seeing as this film is hardly supposed to be 'high drama' and just simple fun - it's kind of forgivable.  Most of them have 'supposed' character-arcs which seem to be a little too neatly/conveniently tied up at the end of the film.

If you only watch one 'Waiting' film then definitely go for the first one.  This one doesn't have half so many laughs.  However, it's not all bad - not even nearly.  Just because it doesn't have that many 'laugh out loud' moments doesn't mean that it's not worth a watch.  If you have it on in the background then you can dip in and out of it.  You're not going to miss that much and will soon pick it up again.  But there's definitely a drop in quality in the writing between the original and this one.  Let's just hope that they don't really sink lower and make a 'third installment.'

6/10 May just keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights