Merry Men 2 – Another Mission

Say what you will but Merry Men 2 was actually a much more palatable film than it’s prequel, “Merry Men: The Real Yoruba Demons”

In this sequel, the merry men have hung up their hats and have been retired to a regular life for a year now. Naz (Jim Iyke) is married to Ayo’s sister, Kemi, and Ayo (Ramsey Nouah) is planning a wedding with Dera (Damilola Adegbite). All is hunky dory until Dame Maduka (Ireti Doyle) shows back up with a compulsory job for the Merry Men.

To be completely honest with you, from part one to part two the storyline has gotten a solid upgrade. At least now we have a cause and an agenda that is easy to get behind. Here, the focus is less on trying to be funny and fancy and more on getting the job done. One other solid thing done here is that the characters who are most emotionally invested in what’s at stake – aka those who are required to show the emotions – are the actual actors, Ramsey and Jim. Believe me when I say it would have been even more painful for you and I to have had to watch either AY or even Falz have to play those parts.

Speaking of upgrades in AY movies, now that we are using storylines that are more believable, how about we start to get rid of unnecessary actors. And let’s start with Ayo Makun himself. It’s impossible to deny that the acting quality in this movie would have been eons better if AY was removed from the cast lineup. He only excels in the comic scenes, everywhere else he’s either unintentionally funny or unconvincingly trying to force humor into a scene. Even then though, 90% of the sparse comedy in this film is really thanks to William Uchemba.

Even though the writing has improved here by getting a believable source of conflict, there are still weaknesses. The graduation is not from elementary to university level. It’s elementary to junior secondary at best. Plot holes abound, unnecessarily added on scenes are plentiful, and there were multiple opportunities for the writer to go beyond what we were given and color in the characters a bit more. Granted, this audience is probably not going to miss it, but we loose nothing by writing intelligent scripts so I will keep pleading for it.

The graphics in this movie aren’t the worst we’ve seen, the action choreography here – like it’s predecessor – still leaves much to be desired, but the addition of the ladies in this film was definitely a nice touch. There are many scenes here and there where the effect sought out was ruined by a silly mistake or miscalculation on the actor’s part and could have benefited from a second take – like when Ramsey fidgets with his gun and his belt, or when Nancy is trying to figure out how to place her helmet on her bike, etc – but if we start asking for all this, we might be asking for too much from a film like ‘Merry Men’. Ufuoma McDermott (as Zara), though an unconventional choice, was actually well suited to the role and quite convincing in all of her moments – even with the funky eyebrows and coat of many colors hairstyles she had on.

It is without question that money was spent on this movie; from the shots, to the costumes, the sets and the props, it all ties in well to create the aura that the writing requires. The performances and the chemistry between our characters was fun to watch from Dera and Ayo to Naz and Kemi. Props to all the actors involved in this movie (except AY) and especially the actress who plays Kemi because she was a surprise in how likeable she made the character turn out to be with the few moments she had.

Say what you will about the movie, you can’t deny that Merry Men 2 was fun!