Murder Mystery 2 review: the only mystery is why it isn't better

Netflix’s first Murder Mystery could charitably be read as a Knives Out parody, with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston bungling their way through an Agatha Christie-ish set-up featuring a dead patriarch and many murderous, angling heirs. The sequel, which borrows Glass Onion’s conceit of a billionaire’s invite-only party on a private island, aspires more to be an action movie than a classic whodunit. The mystery element is weaker, depending upon two clues, max; and while some of the action sequences are nicely staged, there aren’t enough of them, or enough big laughs, to make this a solid action comedy.

You want to root for Sandler and Aniston; as a married couple, they strike the perfect balance between bickering, passive-aggressiveness, brutally honest mutual assessment, and genuine camaraderie. (Sandler’s former rom-com partner, Drew Barrymore, worked better as a dream courtship girl, whereas Aniston’s groove with Sandler is more hot-but-neurotic wife.) It’s too bad returning writer James Vanderbilt (David Fincher’s Zodiac and, somehow, The Amazing Spider-Man, Darkness Falls, and White House Down) doesn’t quite know what to do with the two stars here. In the first film, they were clearly marks who became accidental heroes. Four years on, inspired by their victory, they’re supposedly professional private investigators who’ve gotten better at some skills … and really, really not better at others.

We’re supposed to believe, for example, that both Sandler’s Nick and Aniston’s Audrey are pretty good in a fight, yet they still cannot use weapons despite ample practice. Besides that, we must accept that a guilty party who has scouted them pretty well would put them through almost the same paces they triumphed over when they were more naive. It’s a set-up too contrived to feel real, yet not quite over-the-top enough to be hilarious. Watch Paul Feig’s Spy instead for a better take on the untested yet book-smart protagonist.

Three of the major surviving characters from the first Murder Mystery return. One-note caricatures Vik (Adeel Akhtar) and his eternally injured bodyguard Col Ulenga (John Kani) are here again, as is the slightly more developed Inspector de la Croix (Dany Boon). It’s Vik’s wedding day, so of course he wants his friends to come, all expenses paid. Yet before long, he’s kidnapped and his newer bodyguard is found dead. Considering how little the latter gets to say or do, the murder aspect is pretty trivial this time around, but Ransom Mystery just doesn’t have the same alliterative ring.

Upping the stakes like before, the real culprit frames Nick and Audrey for the kidnapping, even though nobody actually believes they did it, and the fact that Vik is nowhere in their vicinity would seem to clearly back that up. But this time, their egos as investigators are on the line as well as their lives, and they’re determined to solve the case. Luckily for them, this villain’s not especially subtle, though they do have more effective masked henchpeople.

There’s a chase sequence inside a van that’s aces, with Sandler and Aniston awkwardly fighting and killing henchmen in accidentally gruesome ways while trying to steer the thing away from crashes, danger, and the nearby river. But it’s almost in the wrong movie—suddenly these two awkward whiners are Mr. and Mrs. Smith. That, and a final action showdown on the Eiffel Tower, are the highlights of the film, but feel like they might have been grafted on from another screenplay, one that should have been made in its entirety rather than this, perhaps.

By contrast, a shticky bit that’s clearly supposed to be a comedic centerpiece, involving Sandler having to constantly barricade and un-barricade a hotel room door, comes off as incredibly labored. It’s clear what the joke is supposed to be, but you’d be forgiven for forgetting to laugh.

Targeted at folks Sandler’s age who’ll get the jokes about Indecent Proposal and Sleepless In Seattle, Murder Mystery 2 doesn’t aim particularly high. That it occasionally scores only emphasizes all the shots it missed. Perhaps the gag that Nick literally cannot hit anything he fires at is more meta than intended. If the cliffhanger-ish ending really does lead to a third installment, here’s hoping all involved figure out what sort of movie to make, because the only mystery in the second installment is why it isn’t better.

Murder Mystery 2 debuts Friday, March 31 on Netflix.