KIDS ON FILM : ‘Wayne’s...

They’re baaaack! The adolescent twentysomethings are making kids laugh but not quite as hard as they did for the original, which reached near cult status as a video.

“I liked One better,” said Amanda Stampley, 13. “The second one, it was good, but it was mostly the same sort of thing.”

In the world of Wayne and Garth, that means their enthusiastic signature phrases such as: “We’re not worthy!” (while groveling before rock stars), “Schwing!” (with a pelvic tilt whenever a pretty girl walks by) and, of course, the multipurpose “Party on!” and “Not!”

Wayne is still pursuing the beautiful Chinese American rock singer Cassandra. Garth is still hoping to outgrow his innocence.

Even though the sequel has new gags and jokes, there isn’t the same fun of discovering for the first time two goofballs who manage to deal on their own terms with some of the Big Questions while submerged in the pursuit of sex and the popular culture.

Moreover, according to Austin George, 14, the original had a better plot line.

Still, there’s a lot to like in the sequel--most of it an indescribable brand of humor, halfway between Mad magazine and Beavis and Butt-head, which the kids called “very funny,” “cool” and “really stupid.”

“A lot of movies are kind of lame, and a lot of kids in them are dorks, but (Wayne and Garth) are kind of, I don’t know, they’re not stupid and they know what’s cool,” Austin said.

One 12-year-old said her favorite part was when Wayne and Garth, wearing disguises to spy on Cassandra, are chased into a gay bar and end up performing a song on stage.

A 10-year-old liked the karate battle between Wayne and Cassandra’s father in which their words are dubbed because they are both speaking Chinese and it’s “better than subtitles.”

Amanda said she liked the scene when a sexy Kim Basinger approaches Garth in the laundromat and asks him if he’d like to have dinner some night. He replies naively, “I like to have dinner every night.” Later his glasses fog up in a very steamy sex scene.

Howard Hsu and Robbie Burns, both 10, said they didn’t even notice the ubiquitous sexual humor and what a Times reviewer called “good-natured raunchiness.”

But Austin knew instantly what he remembered most about the movie: “Kim Basinger.”

Some humor may appeal only to older viewers, such as satirical references to “The Graduate” or a scene in which Wayne stops the action, asks for a better actor and then gets Charlton Heston, who gives a speech that brings tears to his eyes.

But basically, kids thought the movie too stupid for grown-ups to appreciate. “I think only kids like it,” Amanda said.