On March 31, Netflix presented the second part of the comedy detective “Mysterious Murder”, which was released in 2019. Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston returned to their roles, playing the couple Spitz. This time they will have to expand their investigation in Paris. In the review below, we tell how the romantic capital of France influenced the adventures of the heroes. No spoiler.
“Mysterious murder 2” / Murder Mystery 2
Comedy detective genre
Directed by Jeremy Harelik
Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Mark Strong, Melanie Laurent, Dani Boone
Netflix premiere
Release year 2023
IMDb site
Former New York cop Nick Spitz can boast neither the observation of Hercule Poirot nor the accurate shooting of his colleague John McLane. His wife, Audrey, who once did model haircuts, is also missing stars from the sky, but she is sure that detective work is her and her husband’s true calling.
After the events of the first film, the couple decides to start their own detective agency. However, things are not going very well, and even a textbook written by a famous MI6 professional is not helping them. Suddenly, Nick is contacted by his good friend, Maharajah Vikram Govindan, who announces his wedding and invites the Spitzs to it.
To distract themselves from work failures, the heroes accept an invitation and go to a luxurious private island, where a celebration is to be held. Despite the fact that it is customary to steal bridegrooms at weddings, unknown persons kidnap Vikram himself and later demand an obscenely large sum for his return. This is where the Spitz have a great opportunity to show their skills and save a friend.
If you’re familiar with the studio’s productions featuring a man smashing glass with a golf ball on the screensaver, as well as the work of its founder Adam Sandler, then you know what kind of content to expect. Sandler’s Happy Madison specializes in the production of comedies, in particular, often very unpretentious and far from the signs of good taste.
The same studio also worked on the first “Murder Mystery” – a film not too generous in quality humor, which, however, appealed to classic detectives in the style of Agatha Christie and collected amazing views on Netflix.
The sequel moves in a similar direction to the first part and has nuances: Monaco has been replaced by Paris, murder by kidnapping, and Sandler’s lush mustache by a thick beard.
Already at the beginning, the main characters arrive on an amazing sunny island, where the characters literally bathe in luxury. It reminds me of last year’s “Glass Onion” by Ryan Johnson, although the films are in completely different weight categories. If you liked the adventures of the Spitz in the first film, then you should probably watch this one as well.
But everyone else has nothing to catch here. It is customary to say about such comedies that they are well suited for evening viewing with beer and chips. Although, let’s be honest, just a quiet evening with a bottle of sparkling wine, and even after a hard day, it’s already a small holiday. But if you add to this a pleasant movie, which manages to entertain and amuse, it turns out to be a wonderful pastime.
The problem with “Murder Mystery 2” is that it is not able to entertain or amuse. Fortunately, the film hardly descends to the level of the worst opus that came out from under the wing of Happy Madison, but neither can offer anything really funny and exciting.
The adventures of Sandler’s and Aniston’s characters rarely evoke any emotion at all. Rather indifference.
It is worth mentioning only the scene in the bus, when the heroes engage in a fight with the kidnappers. There are both dynamics and funny moments, which are so lacking in the rest of the timeline. In everything else, the sequel is real nonsense, designed not to please the viewer, but to collect views on the streaming service.
The main stars do not pull off this farcical performance. Sandler, as it turned out, lives better in dramatic stories, and in the filmography of Jennifer Aniston there are already so many such roles of funny girlfriends / wives that these performances cause only sadness (while the roles of the caliber of the “Morning Show” are a real delight).
The comedy component of “Murder Mystery 2” turned out to be very weak, and the detective component is not even worth mentioning.
It seems that screenwriter James Vanderbilt took “Murder Mystery 2” as a part-time job in between working on the latest “Screams”, which, by the way, starred Aniston’s best friend Courtney Cox. Well, judging by the current ratings of the projects, this time Monica was more successful than Rachel.
Pros: a good scene on the bus, a few good jokes, short running time, beautiful views of the island Cons: very weak comedy and detective elements, and the plot and characters cause nothing but indifference Conclusion:
“Murder Mysterious 2” is not a movie about murder, but about abduction. This movie can offer no good humor, no exciting plot, no interesting characters. By its climax, the story finally turns into some inappropriate farce, which only gets worse
