A continuation to Tree's time loop hurdle as she discovers the source of her curse and confronts different faces of her deaths.
Just a quick note, 2017's
Happy Death Day was really enjoyable, combining both horror and sci-fi elements into a solid palpable time-waster for the moviephiles. Considering that notion, I thought the first film already established a complete narrative, bar the glaring plot holes that it provided which to me, doesn't really justify a follow-up. Lo and behold, as Christopher Landon, who also directed the first film, now engaged himself into writing the sequel himself, had a couple of tricks left under his sleeves, ready to answer all dangling questions in a form a full-fledged sequel.
In
Happy Death Day 2U, our heroine Tree Gelbman finds herself trapped, yet again, in another maniacal time loop, only this time, more prepared but extremely exhausted into solving her multiversal entanglement. Director Christopher Landon apparently have had a few notes to borrow from the
Back to the Future, or a weak imitation if I may be so bold, as this film had bits and pieces of homage to the said franchise. For some reason, Landon's inspirations brought a different tone to the film, ditching the whole horror and slasher theme of the prequel, and instead, focused more on giving vapid sci-fi tropes for dummies, like a howling revival of Keenen Ivory Wayans'
Scary Movie from 2000.
With all his janky attempts, Landon's quasi-horror sequel wasn't really that bad though. For one, the movie, still, has a lot of amusing scenes and favorable characters that really made this film the slapstick that it was. Jessica Rothe was arguably the best casting choice for this role, as she proves that her comedic timing and enthusiasm for the character always deliver and never, for even one second, fall apart at the seams.
Rachel Matthews reprise her role as Danielle (aka the literal Mean Girl) and again doesn't leave herself too far behind in terms of vapid comedy in comparison to Rothe's astounding performance. I don't have much to say about Israel Broussard's as the goody two-shoes Carter as I personally think his performance doesn't struck me that much and was kind of there just for whatever importance he's hired to fill in. If anything, I thought that Phil Vu who played the role of Ryan, the charmingly funny roommate of Carter was more involved and pivotal to the narrative, as proven with his opening act in the film and more.
Story-wise, Happy Death Day 2U offers a hard choice that Tree must decide upon, giving an additional layer to her character and definitely showed her nuanced performance necessary for the role. Aside from that, this movie doesn't offer much to unearth and felt like an after-thought, or a series of deleted scenes of first film put together to validate another chapter.
Let's Be Reel
Overall, Landon's not so long-awaited sequel was full of gags and a layman's version of quantum physics that's easy to digest and as well as easy to shit out. Personally, this film was not needed but definitely one that won't hurt the franchise either. For the lack of a real sense of horror, Happy Death Day 2U in itself was fundamentally a brainless entertainment that's best watched if either bored or just, well, really really bored.
5/10
Reel Points
"...was fundamentally a brainless entertainment that's best watched if either bored or just, well, really really bored." welp part 1 is enough for me to consume then
ReplyDeleteRussian Doll is better. haha
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