Movie review: ‘A Very Brady Sequel’

FloridaGator80

I just caught “A Very Brady Sequel” again on cable and have to say that it’s difficult to believe that more than 23 years has passed since it was released. I enjoyed both the original “The Brady Bunch Movie” reboot (not to be confused with the TV sequel flicks with the original cast members of the iconic series) as well as its sequel and I remain a fan and say that both movies do real justice to the original TV family, while poking more than a bit of fun at the cheesiness of the series and cast. You can look down your nose all day, but “A Very Brady Sequel” is totally fun, totally groovy and really neat! Plus, it has some magic at the end!

‘A Very Brady Sequel’
(1996; 90 minutes; rated PG-13; directed by Arlene Sanford and starring Shelley Long, Gary Cole and Tim Matheson)

TRIPPIN’ WITH BRADYS IS TOTALLY GROOVY!

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on May 3, 2025.)

OK, so the original Brady kids wouldn’t have had a brush with potential incest (even though the boys and girls are not blood relatives) as happens in this flick. Still, “A Very Brady Sequel” manages to poke a lot of fun at the core of the original TV series, but I’d hope everyone would have a sense of humor about the whole thing. I love this sequel to “The Brady Bunch Movie” that is itself a “reboot” of the TV show.

The filmmakers, especially director Arlene Sanford, managed to extend the big-screen brand of the “Bradys” to keep up with director Betty Thomas’ simply terrific big-screen continuation of the family’s story.

Don’t worry: You know the “Brady” family and the cast revives it to near-perfection. OK, so not everyone would be mistaken for the original (the movie “Greg” was a bit leaner than Barry Williams was on TV in just one example), but they are just the same … with their clean-cut, stereotypical All-American virtues both mocked and basically sideways put on a pedestal. It’s sad that naiveté and decency is the punching bag here, but the context makes it a lot of fun.

A promotional “still” photo from the movie “A Very Brady Sequel.”

Of course, “A Very Brady Sequel” followed the movie that brought the family to big screen. It continues the story though a series of events that is nothing more than each an homage to the TV shows. Plus, “A Very Brady Sequel” tosses in some faded star power (Zsa Zsa Gabor doing a scene with entertainment lowlife Rosie O’Donnell as well as the completely wonderful RuPaul); the sexual attraction between the two oldest “Brady” kids; and references to other iconic TV shows of the ’60s, including “Gilligan’s Island” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” I’m not going to give any spoiler alerts since I’ll let you see the film and find out for yourself, but both references to the old shows is in perfect synch with “A Very Brady Sequel” and fits the story to a T.

Although there’s somewhat of a cliff-hanger of an ending that’s never been resolved with another film, everything turns up just cool for the “Bradys” at the end of the film … and I know you didn’t expect anything less.

Here’s a brief look at the headliners:

  • A two-time Golden Globe winner and two-time nominee (not for this one) and a Primetime Emmy winner and five-time nominee, Shelley Long plays the eternally positive and happy “Carol Brady” in a way that Florence Henderson would approve. She’s deals out just the right amount of ditz and love for the family, but also doesn’t make the character a tragic stereotype. Of course, Long is best known for her work on TV on “Cheers” (all three wins and five of her overall nominations) and I actually more enjoyed her work on Ron Howard’s “Night Shift” with Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton. Best of all, she was on a first-season episode of “The Love Boat” (click here for my look at that iconic, kitschy series). Sadly, she did eight episodes on that massively overrated stinkbomb series called “Modern Family.”
  • A Primetime Emmy nominee, Gary Cole plays legendary TV father “Mike Brady.” Cole, who is best known as dreary corporate VP “Bill Lumberg” on the cult classic “Office Space” (click here to read my review). Cole, like Long, is pitch-perfect as the perfect big-screen father with all the answers. He delivers his lines with aplomb and it doesn’t take long for him to take over the “Mike Brady” character in your mind. Good job, Gary. It’s interesting, but Cole doesn’t appear to have the physical presence of Robert Reed, the original “Mike Brady,” yet he’s 6 feet tall to Reed’s 6-foot-3. Hmmm. Cole earned his nomination for the series “Veep” and also received a win and four nominations for it from the Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has notched a prolific career with 206 acting credits through the spring of 2025 in a career that has now spanned five decades since the first in 1983.
  • A two-time Primetime Emmy nominee, Tim Matheson is the outside-the-family co-star who finds it all too easy to trick the Brady family. He plays “Roy Martin,” who is really “Trevor Thomas.” Matheson has a lot of fun with this role, from scamming the entire family to all the scenes, including getting high on his own mushrooms that “Alice” the housekeeper inadvertently puts into his dinner one night. He is best-remembered as “Eric ‘Otter’ Stratton” in the legendary comedy classic “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (click here for my look at comedy classics). Matheson has worked as hard as any actor in Hollywood and has notched 189 acting credits since his first in 1961 on a TV show called “Window on Main Street” with Robert Young. I liked him as the bad guy in “Fletch” opposite Chevy Chase (click here to read my review) and he was also solid as a bad-guy cop in “Magnum Force” (click here to read my review), the first “Dirty Harry” sequel with Clint Eastwood. Unfortunately, he did a horrid “Animal House” rip-off called “Up the Creek” (click here to read my review) that also starred John “Magnum P.I.” Hillerman – and he has this nice turn in “A Very Brady Sequel,” too. Matheson was nominated twice for TV’s “The West Wing.”

Now, I’ll spend a little less time on the actors who played the kids …

  • A promotional “still” photo from the movie “A Very Brady Sequel.”

    Christopher Daniel Barnes plays oldest son “Greg Brady.” Just like the other young actors, he delivers his lines as if he was mimicking the original actor (in this case Barry Williams). Barnes does an OK job and has had an unremarkable career since “A Very Brady Sequel.”

  • Christine Taylor plays oldest daughter “Marcia Brady” and she does this one as if she was the reincarnation of original “Marcia” Maureen McCormick. After that intro, I can’t say much about Taylor. She was also in “The Wedding Singer” and “Zoolander” as well as the critically acclaimed series “Arrested Development.”
  • Middle son “Peter Brady” is played by Paul Sutera, who has gone on to notch twice as many credits as a producer as he did as an actor (and he hasn’t had an acting credit since 2005. Sutera, like the original played by Christopher Knight, is all too easily lost in this one. Still, he’s “Peter” and that stands for something. He also was a producer of 60 episodes of TV’s “Shark Tank” from 2012 to 2014.
  • A promotional “still” photo from the movie “A Very Brady Sequel.”

    Middle daughter “Jan Brady” is played wonderfully by Jennifer Elise Cox. Perpetually frustrated “Jan” is the best of the kids’ roles and Cox does a good job (“Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!). It would have been all too easily fumbled, but she does it well. She has also been in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” with Johnny Depp and worked on a variety of TV shows.

  • Youngest son “Bobby Brady” is played by Jesse Lee Soffer (he was just Jesse Lee in the film’s credits). He does a decent job, but, as the youngest along with “Cindy,” the character has little room for development or even paying great homage. Soffer has worked more than his big-screen brothers and sisters and since 2013 had been active with the “Chicago” TV series (“Fire,” “Med” and “D.”).
  • Finally, we look at the youngest daughter “Cindy Brady,” who is played by Olivia Hack. Just like Soffer, Hack doesn’t have much to work with other than “Cindy’s” hairstyle and earnest demeanor. Still, she manages to convey “Cindy” as you’d expect. Hack has had steady work since the movie with TV series and voicing video games.

Oh, and let’s not forget Alice! The gold standard for TV housekeepers, “Alice Nelson” is reborn by Henriette Mantel and, like several of the others, she does a wonderful job channeling her character. While Mantel has a little less of Ann B. Davis’ somewhat soft but structured personality, she brings a lot of verve to “Alice.” Mandel was in just her second film with “A Very Brady Sequel” and the first was the original remake. Good job, Henriette!

The only supporting character outside the “family” who is worth mentioning is Richard Belzer as “LAPD Detective.” Just like he would be on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and the original “Law & Order,” Belzer plays a sharp-tongued cop who helps Cole uncover the truth about Matheson. It’s a neat little almost-cameo for Belzer, who has also been in “Bonfire of the Vanities” and the awful sequel “Fletch Lives.” He was also in “Night Shift” and, you’ll need to look close, but he was the MC at the club in “Scarface” with Al Pacino. Belzer died of cardiopulmonary arrest caused by heart and respiratory failure at 78 in 2923 at his home in France.

A promotional “still” photo from the movie “A Very Brady Sequel.”

“A Very Brady Sequel” has just too many moments of homage to the original – both the show and some of those behind the scenes (such as creator Sherwood Schwartz). It’s kind of like “Airplane!” or any of the Zucker-Abrahams flicks, such as “Top Secret!” (click here to read my review) in which, if you blink, you’ll miss something. So, hats off to Sanford, who has 112 credits as a director through the start of 2020, but only two, including “A Very Brady Sequel,” were for films – the rest for TV shows and TV movies.

“A Very Brady Sequel” was the 83rd ranked film at the U.S. box office in 1996 with $21.4 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. Sadly, crappy films such as “The First Wives Club” (10th with $105.4 million), “Sense and Sensibility” (37th with $39.4 million) and “Muppet Treasure Island” (45th with $34.3 million) all finished ahead of “A Very Brady Sequel.” The No. 1 film was “Independence Day” with Will Smith ($306.1 million) and at No. 2 was “Twister” ($241.7 million). Here are the films from 1996 that I’ve reviewed and posted on this blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • RuPaul’s full birth name is RuPaul Andre Charles; Long’s middle name is Lee; and Cole’s middle name is Michael.
  • Because of the brief showing of nunchakus in “A Very Brady Sequel,” the film was denied release in the United Kingdom. The UK had a ban on showing the weapon at the time – and I don’t know if it has been changed in the 28+ years since.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The animated characters of the twin dancing pandas ‘Ping & Pong’ as well as the magical bird that were characters in the The Brady Kids (1972) TV series make an appearance in “Roy Martin aka Trevor’s” mushroom induced dreams.”
  • Late night TV host Jimmy Fallon reportedly had his first film audition for “A Very Brady Sequel.” He sought a bit part as a lifeguard in the film, but didn’t make the cut.
  • Florence Henderson, who is the original “Carol Brady,” agreed when told by a interviewer on TV that “A Very Brady Sequel” was just a bit “mean-spirited.” I don’t really agree, but who can argue with Florence? 😊
  • “A Very Brady Sequel” was Gabor’s final film. She died at 99 of a heart attack in 2016, just over a decade after the release of “A Very Brady Sequel.”
  • “A Very Brady Sequel” was Hillerman’s final film, too. A Golden Globe winner and four-time nominee, Hillerman, whose best known role was “Jonathan Quayle Higgins III” on TV’s classic “Magnum P.I.” and it earned him his win and nominations. Hillerman died at 84 in 2017 of heart disease.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “At the auction scene, the auctioneer mentions Ms. McCormick and Ms. Plumb. This is in reference to the original Marcia and Jan, Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb, respectively.”
  • Click here for IMDb.com’s surprisingly sparse trivia page of the movie …

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