Please don't spend money on this.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is the last of the many Ernest movies and I'm surprised that the only one I saw before was "Ernest Saves Christmas". It's kind of a shame as that was probably the best in the whole series. The Ernest P. Warrell character started out doing commercials and they made a lot movie series out of him. As you might have guessed, it's really hard to stretch a character that was funny in a few commercials into an entire length of movies. Even sketch comedy doesn't work as badly as that. It's mostly just nothing but childish jokes.It was actually weird to see a 1998 movie about fighting in the Middle East. It actually makes me weirdly nostalgic for that time period pre 911 when there wasn't really a major threat like communism or terrorism. I guess there was still warfare and there always will be. The kid and woman character in the film honestly don't do that bad of a job. Ernest would have been funny as like a side character but to make entire movies focused on him is annoying. At least we got that great Santa. *1/2

I have to admit that I don't really understand where Ernest came from or why anyone thinks he should be in movies.I think he started out doing commercials that weren't funny so of course the Hollywood morons decided he was a superstar.That makes sense.Somehow I managed to make it this long without ever seeing an Ernest movie and now I know why.This movie has absolutely no plot or comedy.I don't think it's technically even a movie.Since I don't know the subtle nuances of the Ernest character, I can't be sure how much of the crap in this movie should have been expected.Was his best friend always in the Army?I guess I will never know.So anyway,his friend tells him he can drive if he joins the army but wanting a girlfriend is why he ends up joining.So he has no problem quickly joining the Army and is immediately driving.Did I mention that almost everyone in the Army wears a different uniform?None of them are even close to the same and most are very ill-fitting.At one point Ernest day dreams and he's wearing a uniform that has the gunnery sergeant stripes upside down.I'm sure everyone who ever served loved that.But Ernest doesn't even wear a uniform, he just wears his True Value vest.His commanding officer does a John Candy impression through the whole movie and it's almost never funny.As far as I can tell, the only joke in the movie was about gummy candy.It was not funny and didn't really make any sense.Did I mention that he joined the reserves who are immediately deployed on a peace keeping mission led by a British soldier?Or that everyone else in the reserves had a machine gun?Or that they left him on a beach and it just cuts to him being with them again?There's also some story line where some guys narrates his sad story and it makes the movie worse.It turns out his son is a black American who dresses like he's in Dexys Midnight Runners.Every other middle eastern person dresses appropriately yet this kid has somehow cobbled together a British hobo costume.If Varney hadn't died there would be 15 more of these terrible movies.Yay death!

After watching Ernest Goes to Africa, I never felt another Ernest movie would come out. What a visceral surprise to see this movie on the video shelves. Moronic and only occasionally funny, I was surprised they didn't do an Ernest in Space or something like that. Jim Varney should have stepped in and said something before this movie was made. I mean, if he was that hard up for money, why couldn't he ask the loyal Ernest fans of the world to help him. A sad pitiful chapter in the life of Ernest P. Worrel.

Wow! This one was even better than Ernest Goes to Africa!! I didn't think that possible, but Jim did it again. I can't wait to see Ernest The Pirate. More hilarious Varney antics, I'm sure! PS: Does anyone know how to be an extra on the set of Ernest the Pirate?