‘Weekend at Bernie’s II’ (PG)

"Weekend at Bernie's II," starring Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman and, as the still-dead Bernie, Terry Kiser, feels like a very long weekend, indeed -- and that's even before the opening credits have run.

If the premise of the first film was mindless and repetitive, it's doubly so this second time around. In this weak follow-up to a shaky original, the filmmakers don't even make an attempt at filling in the audience as to who the characters are or what's going on -- the dirt-napping Bernie has a cool $2 million hidden away in a secret bank account and our heroes use his already moldering body to get it. They simply grab the corpse and start slinging it around, stuffing it in suitcases and refrigerators and, in general, abusing it. This is supposed to be riotously funny, but how many times can you laugh as a dead man's head is slammed into a pole, or gnawed by a shark, or dumped on the beach, especially if the expression on his face is permanently frozen in a blotto smirk?

In a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, McCarthy was listed as a "casualty of the '80s." This means that Bernie isn't the only victim here. In fact, the whole production is like a wake. Rest in peace, Bernie. Please.