MANNEQUIN ON THE MOVE

Like its 1987 predecessor, MANNEQUIN ON THE MOVE is a lifeless, sophomoric and empty-headed attempt at romantic comedy that fails miserably, featuring again a store employee falling in love with a store mannequin who suddenly comes to life.

The picture opens 1,000 years ago in a medieval kingdom as a daring prince battles for a beautiful peasant girl named Jessie. When an evil sorcerer clasps a magic necklace around her, Jessie is frozen lifeless and put under a curse that can only be removed by meeting another true love from another land.

The scene switches to modern-day Philadelphia, where a department store staff awaits the arrival of this statue of the enchanted peasant girl which is now going on tour. As in the first film, the store’s director of visual merchandising is Hollywood Montrose, a flamboyant black whose shameless parade of homosexuality is sure to turn any stomach. Assisting Montrose in the enchanted peasant girl presentation he’s planning is new store employee Jason Williamson.

En route to the store, though, the dummy experiences a mishap, but Jason rescues her. Moved to a kiss, Jason removes her necklace. Jessie comes to life, and Jason shows her the town. After several throw-away lines (real side-splitters like, “I have to go to the trees” for, yuk-yuk, the ladies room), villainous Count Spretzler arrives, the nasty descendant of the sorcerer who hexed Jessie.

Spretzler’s kingdom has made him overseer in the enchanted peasant girl presentation, but knowing the secret of the necklace, Spretzler plans to keep the girl for himself and fly off to Bermuda. Accompanying the Count on his mission are three laughably brainless and bulbous-looking personal guards, who are also homosexuals, with as much acting ability as one could scrape off Hollywood Blvd.

The stupid caricatures and lamebrain plot contrivances are used to dummify and de-dummify Jessie over and over again whenever the necklace is put on or taken off. After a wild chase through store aisles, Jessie reverts to her inanimate state, but Montrose and Jason devise a plan to spring her at the presentation. The evil Count ends up as a statue, while Jessie goes off with Jason to lead a normal life.

The element of sexual immorality, more than anything else, puts this PG-rated movie off limits to would-be moviegoers. MANNEQUIN ON THE MOVE has, in fact, more homosexuals on the move than mannequins. See the colorful, outlandish garb they wear. See flamboyant Montrose dispense romantic advice to a nerdy security guard. While some of the sodomite depiction will doubtless be unflattering to homosexuals, one has to ask: why the preoccupation with it?

Furthermore, Jason’s mom, who runs a dating service, condones her son’s attempt at promiscuity with Jessie. The Bible warns against these things in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, “you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.”