Dammit, I knew that getting lucky with Murder Mystery 2 being kind of decent wasn’t going to last. Although honestly, I have some morbid appreciation for this because I didn’t even think they made American comedies like this any more. Both here and for my FilmInk work, I find myself regularly bringing up how modern US comedies seem to spend a lot of time just ad-libbing and riffing instead of actually moving the plot forward or doing anything interesting with the characters. Nowadays, most filmmakers have gotten it into their heads that comedy can help advance a story instead of just grinding it to a halt for little to no reason, but there are some brave little soldiers who are doing their best to keep that style alive.
As written by Evan Turner and Ben Zazove, I wouldn’t be surprised if they came up with the title first, started writing a film for it, and then realised that punning alone doesn’t make for great story material, because this is thin. You’ve got Adam Devine still being all screechy and annoying, trying to prove that his fiancĂ©e Parker (Nina Dobrev still in search of a script worth her talents)’s parents (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin) are actually bank robbers. The first half is taken up by Devine being gaslit about that, which might have been okay if the film wasn’t so blaringly obvious about the truth of the matter, while the second half has him reluctantly teaming up with them in order to pay Parker’s ransom to Rehan (Poorna Jagannathan), the Out-Laws’ former teammate who they double-crossed.
It's a straight-forward plot that doesn’t have enough content to even fill up an hour and a half, so of course, we have them bickering with each other, wacky similes like it’s still the 2010s, and generally just filling up time. That Devine is so bloody annoying (and emasculated for the sake of comedy, because surely, only total pussies would want to stay the hell away from bank robbery) is bad enough, but despite the other actors (including Michael Rooker as an FBI agent trying to hunt the robbers down) doing their best with the material… well, it doesn’t matter how well you plate a turd; it’s still shit.
It doesn’t help that, when the film tries to lean into being an action heist flick, it’s still subpar. The action scenes are bog-standard (which would’ve been disappointing regardless, let alone in a year as chock-full of satisfying action flicks as 2023), and even the better moments are soundtracked by Devine screaming his lungs out and/or getting thrown around. The fact that Ian Kezsbom and Phillip Kimsey thought that fast-cutting between Brosnan and Barkin in a much better movie with Devine literally just gurning into the camera lens… *sigh*. This is like an even worse example of how the first Murder Mystery came across, with the lead actor barging his way into a movie already in progress, because Devine is both directly focused on and interrupting things that might have been entertaining enough if left alone.
Look, when it comes to Happy Madison Netflix movies, this is as average as it gets. Misplaced lead actor, wasted supporting cast, weak script, irritating attempts at humour, and just a general vibe of having one’s time wasted as opposed to being entertained. It’s not good, but considering the mean for HM films nowadays that don’t star Adam Sandler, that it’s only annoying and not outright making me want to chew through my laptop screen to get the taste out of my mouth might as well be glowing praise.
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