Rotten Tomatoes score: 13%
Thirteen percent? I take that as a personal insult. This is without a doubt the best of the Ernest movies, and that is saying something.
Ernest is now working as the night janitor in a bank, where he works alongside trigger-happy security guards Chuck and Bobby (the off-kilter airline guys from Ernest Saves Christmas). Ernest spends his time pining after bank clerk Charlotte (Barbara Bush—apparently there are at least two Barbara Bushes in the world) and dreaming of trading his floor-scrubber for a teller's desk. Unfortunately, the uptight bank manager doesn't take kindly to Ernest's habit of accidentally transforming into a human electromagnet and making a horrible mess of the bank.
After the outrageous cartoon hijinks of Ernest electrifying himself and being chased around the bank by metal filing cabinets, we cut to a prison in the aftermath of an inmate's murder. We don't see the body or anything, but I'm pretty sure this is the only time an actual death takes place in an Ernest movie. The killer, Ruben, seeks protection from a shadowy figure called Mr. Nash.
Ernest is delighted to learn that he's been selected for jury duty in Ruben's trial. During the trial, Ernest accidentally breaks open a ballpoint pen in his mouth. There is no purpose for this, but it's hilarious. At the same time, Ruben notices that Ernest bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Nash. During a highly unorthodox jury field trip to the crime scene, Mr. Nash manages to switch places with Ernest. While Nash commits jury tampering to acquit Ruben, Ernest spends a day in prison before figuring out what's happened.
Ernest reluctantly agrees to imitate Mr. Nash, lest the real Nash should hurt his friends, while Nash takes advantage of Ernest's job to plan a bank heist. Unfortunately for the real Ernest, Nash's last appeal has been turned down, and he has a date with the chair.
In most movies, a scene of the main character being mistakenly sent to the death chamber would be terrifying, but in this movie . . . it's still pretty disturbing. They do their best to distract you with gags like a sign switching from "vacant" to "occupied" when Ernest enters, and Ernest refusing a last smoke because "cigarettes'll kill ya." But this is still pretty heavy. At least, it is until Ernest is actually in the chair, at which point he of course does not die, but rather becomes electrified again. This time, he's not just magnetic; he has also acquired the power to shoot lightning from his fingertips, which is a convenient way to get him out of the prison.
Ernest returns to the bank just in time to find that Nash has tied his pals to a time bomb set to blow the vault. Finally the twain meet, and Ernest goes mano a mano with Mr. Nash. He manages to collide with one of the security guards' booby traps, which electrifies him yet again, giving him the gift of flight. Ernest sacrifices himself by taking the bomb and flying through the bank's glass ceiling just before it explodes.
Ernest's friends express their heartbreak at Ernest's heroic death, but you'd think they would have learned by now. Second later, Ernest falls back through the ceiling and flattens Nash, having suffered only minor comical injuries.
(The TV version of this movie includes a number of deleted scenes, including one at the end where Ernest has achieved his dream of being a bank clerk, but he still suffers from accidental magnetism.)
This is a great movie. I saw it on video when I was six (my first Ernest encounter), and I find it every bit as entertaining now. As a six-year-old, I was thrilled by Ernest's electrically-powered jailbreak, and that scene alone is still enough reason to watch the movie.
As in Ernest Saves Christmas, Jim Varney seems to have been eager to maximize his screen time playing characters other than Ernest. That movie put Ernest in three disguises (all playing characters he had created elsewhere), and here they went the extra mile by having him play a separate character, in addition to the scene where Ernest rattles off a series of impressions while trying to impersonate Nash. I like all of these characters, and it's a shame Jim Varney was so underused in his lifetime.
(Incidentally, isn't it strange that someone as ostensibly idiotic as Ernest is such a consummate actor? He is fully capable of portraying a character more intelligent than himself, most notably Astor Clement in Ernest Saves Christmas, who uses words the real Ernest wouldn't recognize. This is a great cartoon tradition, so of course it requires no further justification.)
I also can't help laughing when security guard Chuck finally realizes, after days of interaction with Nash, that he isn't the real Ernest: "I sensed it immediately."
Finally, I have to mention the theme music in this movie, both the opening song "Doin' Time," and the inexplicable end credits theme, which features the refrain: "Don't make me climb / These aren't my tree-climbin' shoes." I have no comment.
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