2024, Peter Segel (Ken Jeong Made Me Do It) -- Amazon
You would think the original writing & directing team could do something at least interesting again with the characters they established in the last movie. Instead, they squander a greater budget with a "European Vacation". I am not saying they made box office magic with the first movie but at least they made use of the precocious interaction between giant Dave Bautista and tiny little Chloe Coleman. Here, they decide to mine the tiresome conflict between (step) father and teen daughter.
No disrespect to a Dad raising a young teen; Kent is doing it admirably !
Some years later JJ (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galazy) is now married to Sophie's mom (Lara Babalola, The Island). First mistake -- they changed the actor, and have the character entirely absent but for a phone call and a wrap-up shot. JJ has taken on a more advisory role in his TLA agency, because he wants to be there for Sophie. When Sophie's choir is invited to sing in Vienna, JJ comes along as chaperone. Insert all the cliche rambunctious teens and losing control over them. Of course, he gets embroiled in some farcical villain plot, this time to Blow Up the Vatican, and he has to get Sophie's well-trained help to foil the plot.
Wasted, all wasted. The relatively streamlined plot of the last movie is replaced by hijinks galore, cartoon villains and the cringe of teen love triangles. Fuck, they even waste Flula Borg as a moustache twirling villain -- he's just not weird enough, and really... he's all muscled up? Ken Jeong, who is always weird but should be used in small doses in movies like this, is turned up to 11 and paired up with Schaal. And they even go down a dark path by killing one of JJ's coworkers. Like, dead dead. Isn't this a family friendly comedy? The fact they shoot the movie in lovely Venice and Rome is ... shrug... useless? Maybe they wanted to be compared to recent spy movies and their European romps, but... why? Probably just to distract us from how lazy everything is about this movie. But at least JJ makes scones.
Flula has been a muscled up gym rat for a number of years now. I don't recall if he started it for Suicide Squad or if he'd done it before, but he's maintained it because he likes to, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised they actually filmed in Europe and, say Quebec City, given that they shot the first in Toronto.