With fantastic
chemistry between the three leads, you can easily forgive a lot of Horrible
Bosses 2’s shortcomings.
The sequel brings
Dale, Kurt and Nick together again where they are starting their own business
with a device called a “Shower-Buddy” or “Shower-Daddy” depending on who you
ask. Through sheer naivety the guys end up in serious financial debt after
doing a dodgy deal with a ruthless businessman played by Oscar-winner Christoph
Waltz who takes their idea and turns it into the “Shower-Pal.” Instead of
planning a murder like in the last film, they instead resort to ‘kidnaping’.
Their target is Waltz’s son, played by Star Trek’s new Captain Kirk Chris Pine,
who becomes more involved with the kidnapping plot than any of them expected.
The best thing
about this film is the three main characters. The banter between Jason Bateman,
Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day is what made the first film such a hit and once again,
this is the sequel’s strongest selling point. There are so many laugh out loud
moments that just occur between the three of these guys arguing and debating
each other that this film probably could survive being just two hours of these
guys interacting without any plot. Kevin Spacey returns briefly as Bateman’s
old boss and Jennifer Aniston makes another appearance as the scene-stealing
nymphomaniac dentist hell-bent on banging every man within a 50-mile radius
with a heartbeat. Chris Pine proves to have much better comedic appeal than he
displayed in films like ‘This Is War’.
The film does have
some drawbacks: some jokes either fall flat or become annoying, and they do a
series of things that they don’t really develop - whether this is to serve as
filler to get the film up to its 108 minute running time or whether they cut a
whole bunch of stuff out we don’t know yet. Christoph Waltz is completely
underused in this film to the point that his casting seems completely unnecessary
with respects to utilizing his talents. Any other age-appropriate actor could
have played this role without it feeling like stunt casting.
Another drawback
is the rut that Jason Bateman seems to have found himself in, he plays the same
character in every film: the everyman with the world on his shoulders and a
sarcastic wit to match every situation. There’s nothing wrong with this but it
does start to feel a bit ‘samey‘, even in his other film venture from earlier
this year, ‘Bad Words‘ he may have been playing against character but he still
ended up being Michael Bluth by the time the end credit rolls. In the same
breath, Charlie Day could be accused of the same thing however he just has a
frenetic energy that’s makes his performance more unpredictable than Bateman’s.
Overall this is
essentially a dumb-buddy comedy that relies on the charm of its’ three leads
and those scene-stealing moments from Jennifer Aniston. You’ll get quite a few
laughs but this is probably best suited to a “Tight-Ass Tuesday.”
Three out of Five wishes that Jennifer Aniston would do more roles
like this.
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