Brief Story Line
Four years after the events of the first film, Nick Spitz (Adam Sandler - Hubie Halloween, Hustle etc) and his wife Audrey (Jennifer Aniston - Dumplin', Horrible Bosses etc.) were focusing on their detective agency business when they were invited to the wedding of the Maharajah, Vikram (Adeel Akhtar - Enola Holmes 2, Sweet Tooth TV series etc) in his private island. The Spitzes were later introduced to Vikram's fiancee Claudette (Mélanie Laurent - Oxygen TV series, Now You See Me etc), his younger sister Saira (Kuhoo Verma - Plan B etc), the board director Francisco (Enrique Arce - On The Line etc), Countess Sekou (Jodie Turner-Smith - Without Remorse etc) and her sidekick Imani (Zurin Villanueva) and Colonel Ulenga (John Kani - Black Panther etc).
However, the supposedly happy event turned ugly when someone was found murdered. As the Spitzes tried to do their own investigation, a professional detective Miller (Mark Strong - Shazam!, 1917 etc) was called to assist in the case. This would spark an imbalanced competition since the Spitzes were still amateur compared to Miller who had his own tech savvy and experienced team.
So who was actually the murderer and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
As I said above, I really enjoyed the first movie with its non-serious take of murder mystery investigation by a couple who were in way over their heads portrayed by Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler who had wonderful chemistry. They were truly convincing as couple married for years with their constant hilarious bantering and obvious love for one another. And in this sequel, they amazingly could get into characters easily and they were just like how I remembered them.
This time, the major case involved few people from their past with several cast reprising their roles (including Danny Boon as Inspector Delacroix), combined with new characters specifically for this movie. Aside from their frequent mistakes, the Spitzes could still manage to get few things right, which was still the highlight of this mystery comedy movie (though it took so many of those critical errors before they did so). There were plenty of scenes that I could laugh out loud which made my wife quite intrigued. Other than those two lead characters, sadly the rest did not really leave good impression (except maybe Mark Strong).
The mystery though was not as complicated as in the predecessor and it was not too difficult to guess the real culprits. However, there was still one twist that I did not see coming that delighted me. But do not expect this to be a totally intelligent whodunit mystery like other films that took such investigation seriously such as Agatha Christie's or Sherlock Holmes novels adaptation. For me, the most interesting part was certainly the comedy. One thing that I wished was for the movie to have longer duration. It was only having 89 minutes including long closing credits (compared to 97 minutes of the original). Oh and it did not have any mid or post end credit scenes.
This film was directed by Jeremy Garelick who had worked with Sandler before in The Wedding Ringer and written by James Vanderbilt (writer of Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-man etc). Btw, Sandler and Aniston were also credited as producers. Overall this was one movie that should be seen as a comedy and nothing more. If you enjoy watching Sandler and Aniston portraying married couple playing amateur detectives with some hilarious moments, then you would like this one. Plus some of the scenes were shot in a lovely island and the beautiful Paris. But if serious mystery investigation is more your thing, then better look elsewhere. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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