i had a chance to see a sneak preview of city slickers ii on campus last night . 
i went in with the expectation of a film with the similar flavor which made the original such a success : personal growth and insightful humor about life . 
i came away somewhat disappointed in this regard , getting some of the latter and not much of the former . 
the basic plot revolves around billy crystal , who plays mitch robbins , turning forty . 
he's now become the station manager of the radio station in which he worked in the original . 
he's given a job at the radio station to his best friend , played by daniel stern , out of sympathy while stern's character works through his divorce . 
his loser younger brother ( john lovitz ) comes to mitch's house to bum a money and place to live , all while mitch and his wife try to celebrate his birthday . 
during the celebration , mitch discovers what appears to be a treasure map in curly's ( the cattle drive leader in the original played by jack palance ) old hat . 
after a business trip to las vegas , crystal , stern , and lovitz stay a few extra days to go off in search of the treasure . 
on the way , they run into curly's twin brother , duke , played by ( you know who ) jack palance . 
first of all , the cinematography was beautifully done , especially the outdoor scenes in the desert . 
the scenes are such that i would like to see some of those sights filmed myself . 
there is some character development during the film . 
the actors remain true to their characters and play them well , without overplaying the jokes . 
the movie is a good basic adventure , with enough plot twists to provide for an ending that is difficult to predict . 
the movie is paced well , but with a couple slow spots in the middle and towards the end . 
humor-wise , the film has a good number of jokes which maintained my interest throughout the film . 
there are memorable moments like when stern is bitten by a snake , but there are fewer jokes to laugh at in the sequel ( surprise , surprise for a sequel , right ? ) . 
however , the slight bitter aftertaste i have with this film has to do mainly with the film's manipulation of the audience . 
the film tries to pull your heart-strings too much regarding how close the characters are to each other , like when mitch had decided to suck the snake marrow out of his best friend's butt . 
this is done again when the gang meets up with some members of the cattle drive group from the original . 
there were also some parts which appeared unrealistic , like whether the stampede would start in the way it did or why they didn't worry more about water while tromping around the desert . 
some strenuous stretches of the imagination are required here . 
since the objective of the gang is to find gold and get rich ( unlike finding themselves in middle age like in the original ) , i also found it harder to empathize with the characters during their journey . 
overall , i'd say that the film is an entertaining and humorous adventure with some story-line deficiencies making it less worthy than the original . 
it may be worth the full price of admission , but a matinee would be a better bargain .