Murder Mystery 2 Review: Weak Comic thriller Murder Mystery Without Suspense
Cast: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Mark Strong, Melanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith, Enrique Arce, Dany Boon, John Kani, Adeel Akhtar
Director: Jeremy Garelick
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2.5/5 (two and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The Spitz spouses are back with a new investigation, indeed with a new and second film in the Murder Mystery series, again starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. Murder Mystery 2 picks up the story where we left off four years ago in 2019, with the close-knit Nick and Audrey Spitz, who after their first investigation between Monte Carlo and Lake Como, have finally celebrated their Honeymoon, delayed for years, aboard the legendary Orient Express courtesy of Interpol and Inspector Delacroix. This second film also distributed by Netflix and directed this time by Jeremy Garelick focuses, once again, on the pair of American actors who, this time however, investigate from a paradisiacal island in the middle of the ocean up to the streets of Paris.
The year was 2015, and Adam Sandler, burned by various commercial failures on the big screen, signed an exclusivity agreement with Netflix, given the popularity of his streaming filmography. An agreement that has been continuously renewed over the years, to the point that since it was first drawn up Sandler has starred in eleven films (with three more already confirmed by the end of 2023), of which only one – Hotel Transylvania 3, where he voices Dracula in the original – released in theaters traditionally. The eleventh is precisely the one we are going to talk about in our review of Murder Mystery 2, the sequel to the film which in 2019 explored the artistic partnership between the actor-producer and his friend Jennifer Aniston.
Murder Mystery 2 Review: The Story Plot
Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) and Nick (Adam Sandler) have now opened their agency as private detectives in New York, but the business is not going well, indeed the two are on the road to bankruptcy. One evening the couple receives a surprise call from their friend Maharajah Vikram Govindan (Adeel Akhtar) who invites them at the last minute to her wedding on her private island. The ex-police officer and ex-Brooklyn hairdresser accept the proposal on the fly and join the rich friend they met in the previous adventure. While everything seems to be fine for the Spitz, between a bedroom by the sea, expensive Tiffany and Apple gifts, aphrodisiac cheese, definitely a dream vacation for free and all paid for by the bridegroom, the evening before the Bollywood-style wedding ceremony, the maharajah is kidnapped.
The odd pair of detectives, once again, find themselves investigating a mystery only on this occasion they are joined by Conner Miller (Mark Strong) a former British Secret Service hostage negotiator. The story from here moves to the French capital where Vikram is held hostage, here the Spitzes with Miller are ready to pay the robbers with a huge sum of banknotes inside a briefcase but, when Audrey and Nick are involved, nothing goes right. Meanwhile in Paris, in addition to the future bride Claudette (Mélanie Laurent), also the sister of the maharajah Saira (Kuhoo Verma), Colonel Ulenga (John Kani) the one without an arm and already present in the first film, the retired soccer player Francisco (Enrique Arce) and the English countess Sekou (Jodie Turner-Smith) all wedding guests but also suspects.
Unfortunately, by the time Murder Mystery 2 attracts us and makes us laugh at the complete inability of the Spitzes to never follow the established plan, the film becomes predictable where you already know that the cast made up of secondary characters will end badly and will be killed in some way. Between explosions of cars and a ride aboard a yellow Lamborghini with the help, again, of Commissioner Delacroix (Dany Boon), the American spouses solve the case and find Vikram alive who can finally get married. Film editing by Tom Costain and Brian Robinson allows you not to think too much about the messy final part of the feature film, however, set in a location, Parisian par excellence, such as the Eiffel Tower restaurant.
Murder Mystery 2 Review and Analysis
The strong point of Murder Mystery 2 is the famous interpreters of the Spitz i.e. Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. The first is the comedian born on Saturday Night Live, who never backs down when there are scenes in which he always appears the clumsiest, not even able to aim correctly with a gun, but who would sacrifice himself for the love of his partner. The other is the famous Rachel from Friends, who in recent years has dedicated herself more than herself in dramatic roles such as her interpretation of Alex in the series The Morning Show, where she can give free rein to acrobatics in the balance attached to a rope and in the role of a woman desired by any man, whether Spanish or French, but always faithful and in love with her husband. Sandler and Aniston are on their third time on the set as a couple, and it shows very well if they had already been convinced in the first of the Murder Mystery franchise, here we can see that they enjoy acting together.
In addition to Sandler and Aniston, John Kani (the Colonel), Adeel Akhtar (Maharajah), and Dany Boon (the French policeman) return from the first film, with new entries of the caliber of Mélanie Laurent (Claudette), Tony Goldwyn (one of the clients in the opening scene), Jodie Turner-Smith (the Countess), Enrique Arce (Spanish character actor who previously starred in Hollywood in Terminator: Dark Fate) and Mark Strong, who occasionally indulges in comedic law enforcement roles, here without the explicitly scatological component that had previously characterized him alongside compatriot Sacha Baron Cohen. As in the previous film, Sandler’s classic associates are completely missing, of which usually at least one of David Spade, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, or Steve Buscemi involved in an operation of this type, of a more purely commercial nature compared to the actor’s rare forays into more serious, not to mention overtly dramatic, territory.
As recently underlined by his friends on the occasion of the delivery of the Mark Twain Prize, awarded every year to a person who has distinguished himself in the field of comedy and which went in 2023 to Sandler, the protagonist of films such as Shock Therapy and 50 First Dateshe has never had a particular interest in what others think of the films he stars in and produces, as long as the audience enjoys it and lifelong friends can keep working (Schneider hinted that most of the group can afford the actors union health insurance thanks to production company Happy Madison projects, and Buscemi – a man who has worked with Tarantino, the Coens and Scorsese – said he has never felt better on a set than when called to act in a project by Sandler).
From that point of view, undoubtedly, also Murder Mystery 2 is a success because from the performances it transpires that everyone had a great time during the shooting and enjoy delivering another goofy mystery from multiple locations around the world. If only it weren’t – and here the change of director perhaps influenced, with Jeremy Garelick taking over from Kyle Newacheck – that good intentions don’t translate into good entertainment, except for rare, nice moments like the homage to the A-Team in the opening, which however is only a small wave in an ocean of dead times that can make even just ninety minutes exhausting. If this is the trajectory, it is almost to be hoped that Spade and company will be summoned for a third film, to inject a little bad taste which would be the right antidote against the harmless ordinariness of this anonymously made sequel.
Murder Mystery 2 Review: The Last Words
In the second round, the mix of mystery and comedy is even less effective, and not even the charisma of the cast can compensate for the overabundance of downtime. A comedy with a mystery to solve no longer a murder as in the first film of the series, but a kidnapping to unravel. A film with an unfortunately predictable plot, but which has Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston who are perfect in the role of a married couple who always end up in a lot of trouble.
