Definitely not as good

The original “Sister Act” is a nice film, one that I watched many times as a kid because it is so cute in its “nunsense” and musically rich in its singing. “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit” was inevitable but it struggles to find reason for itself, which is a shame because it seems like all it really needed to do was get the music right again.


I knew the movie was in trouble from the opening scene. Whoopi Goldberg’s Delores Van Cartier now has a Vegas act where she sings golden oldies while dressed as a nun? Is this the right kind of thing for Vegas? Was her story from the first film made national news so people understand it? Why is it just a medley of Motown.


Furthering a plot that makes no sense, we find that all the nuns from the last movie are suddenly teachers, and need Whoopi’s help. She’s made a music teacher. How does this help, you ask? Who knows. The school is about to be closed, it needs money, for some reason this inner city school is run by a bunch of all white, very unhip people. Whoopi seems to be brought in to turn the students into singing/dancing cash cows, but it tries to do it without being crass so it takes a good 30 minutes to get to where we all know it’s going.


The other nuns are all back. Kathy Najimy plays the wacky one, Wendy McKenna the sweet, shy one, and Mary Wickes the sarcastic one. They all have far less to do this time cause Whoopi is now working with students. Maggie Smith also gets a couple scenes as Mother Superior but is mostly replaced by Barnard Hughes as Father Maurice.


The kids exist in one of those public school classrooms in complete disarray, dingey and falling apart. They’re you’re usual blend of stereotypes like the obnoxious white rapper, the militant muslim, the girl with a dream who’s mom won’t let her live it. Rather than portray differing personalities, they’re all attitude and “yo mama” jokes.

What’s really boring about the whole thing is that Whoopi is brought in because these kids have little to no confidence in themselves. The thing is when they do finally open their mouths, they sound like trained singers. All Whoopi has to do is get them to “la la la la” together and they’re suddenly in perfect harmony for a choir.

All that’s left in terms of real drama and conflict is whether or not the lead girl (played by female icon and rapper Lauryn Hill) will convince her mom to let her sing. I suppose you can call James Coburn’s character, who wants to close the school down, another obstacle but he’s such a dastardly cliche it’s pretty obvious he’s gonna end up getting locked in a closet at some point.

Maybe it’s biggest offense though is that it contains only one or two of those pop music turned religious compositions that made the first one a success. There’s one rap inspired bit of “Joyful Joyful” but the rest lacks spontaneity and joy- a movie of mostly just practice until we finally get to the grand finale.

Whoopi tries her best but even the jokes that could be seen a mile away from the first film seem more predictable here. It’s lost its cuteness, the nuns aren’t as prevalent, the whole thing has the feeling of Disney mouseketeers dressed up as troubled inner city youth. As underdog drama it’s tame, as “Sister Act” sequel- it doesn’t seem to know where it’s best attributes were the last time.