MOVIE REVIEWS : ‘Mannequin Two’ Is a Dummy Too

It hardly seems possible, but “Mannequin Two: On the Move” (citywide) is even more feeble than the 1987 original. A variation on the first film rather than a true sequel, it once again features a department store dummy brought to life by an enamored young employee. The first time around, window dresser trainee Andrew McCarthy freed the spirit of an Egyptian princess (Kim Cattrall) trapped in a dummy. This time the mannequin is a Bavarian peasant girl (Kristy Swanson), turned into wood for 1,000 years by the curse of an evil sorcerer (Terry Kiser), until her modern-day prince charming (William Ragsdale), another window dresser trainee, kisses her.

(You’re better off renting “One Touch of Venus” (1948), with Ava Gardner as a statue of Venus in a department store window who comes to life, plus a Kurt Weill-Ogden Nash score.)

Ragsdale works for Philadelphia’s fictional Prince & Co.--again, the landmark John Wanamaker’s serves as the principal setting--which is planning a promotional tribute to the tiny Bavarian duchy of Hauptmann-Koenig. The evil sorcerer’s direct descendant (also Kiser) arrives with much fanfare, a trio of musclemen bodyguards, the crown jewels--he’s planning a defection to Bermuda--and the country’s famous peasant girl statue.

From start to finish “Mannequin Two: On the Move” (rated PG for some mild sexual innuendo) is insipid in the extreme. Returning from the first film, Meshach Taylor once again camps it up outrageously as the store’s head of visual display. The film, from a script by many hands, is directed by Stewart Raffill, who’s more at home with outdoor adventure fare.