Written by: James Vanderbilt
Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Mark Strong, Mélanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith
Rating: [2.5/5]
Setting proper expectations for things in life allows for a controlling of emotions where you can avoid deep disappointments, which unfortunately happens a lot when watching films made by Adam Sandler as he has proven he operates in two modes recently: stupidly comedic and deeply profound. Absolutely no in-between here with Murder Mystery 2 sitting firmly in the former.
Following the raucous adventure in their previous story, Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) and Nick (Adam Sandler) Spitz receive an invitation to attend the wedding of The Maharajah (Adeel Akhtar). While enjoying the festivities afoot they, and the rest of the wedding party learn the groom has been kidnapped. Now working as full-time private detectives, they seek to validate their presence by finding him.
Judging a film like Murder Mystery 2 comes with complexity where you just know no one in this feature thinks they’re making anything remotely profound. They come together to simply travel the world together in the creation of their different sets and tell some lazy jokes in the process. This feature stands as one of those movies that certainly entertain mildly if you have it on in the background as you tune in and out of it but catch some of the funnier bits in between but unfortunately, when I watch a movie I pay attention to it and the more you look at it the more it struggles.
This feature takes place sometime after the previous film and the Spitzs are now full-time private detectives and have a difficult job finding work and doing it well. It gives off the feeling that perhaps what they accomplished on their last adventure served as more of a fluke and whether or not they can replicate it which brings us to this wedding with so much lavishness leaving these two feeling a bit out of place. Throughout the wedding, they interact with various other attendees and notice they do not belong with this crowd, but this process introduces a bunch of colorful characters but also the potential suspects.
From countess Sekou (Jodie Turner-Smith), Claudette (Mélanie Laurent), Saira (Kuhoo Verma), and various others involved, they each bring their distinct personality to the story and provide much of the better comedy on displayed in this feature. These actors get the opportunity to act a bit ridiculous you can very much see where they had the license to completely go for it. This aspect of the movie certainly works in delivering the laughs but unfortunately, there’s a plot needing to be followed and this thing fails to deliver thus tanking the project as a whole.
This feature comes to you amidst a monumental rise in the murder mystery genre all coming with different flavors to freshen things up. Just last year you had films like Glass Onion and See How They Run and the issue this feature runs into is that if you watch those and then turn around and watch this one, you just see the wide gap in quality between them. This film resorts to some lazy humor and a mystery carrying not much intrigue. Compare that to the quality murder mystery movies we have available to us seemingly every year and it becomes evident this one cannot hold a candle to what these excellent writers and directors can do with a concept like this. The other films do not seek to try to be some background movie that can provide some mild entertainment but rather something thoroughly riveting through this story. Again, this feature does not seek to be in that league evidently, but that does not necessarily excuse it from the valid criticism it receives as delivering a lackluster and disappointing story amongst some otherwise entertaining supporting characters.
After watching the first film, I had no interest in continuing to follow the story of Nick and Audrey Spitz but sometimes you must compromise to what your spouse wants to watch. Having my expectations on the floor allowed me to get some enjoyment as I took what I could get from this story but overall it really struggles in filling out its narrative and by the end just feels like empty calories and not something necessarily worth spending even an only forgiving 89 minutes with.
Films with Josh 
