HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 REVIEW

Meh, it wasn’t all horrible, I guess.

The gang are back. Ruder, louder but funnier? Well . . .

What are they up to this time?

Dale (Charlie Day), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Nick (Jason Bateman) decide to start their own business but things don’t go as planned because of a slick investor (Christoph Waltz), prompting the trio to pull off a hare-brained and misguided kidnapping scheme.

I really enjoyed the first one. It was stupid but funny. The plot was a demented version of Strangers on a Train and Jennifer Aniston completely broke out of her comfort zone as the sex addict dentist, Julia.

Inevitably, a sequel was soon on the cards. The first half of the film was actually quite entertaining. Crude, OTT but funny. En par with the first film.

The banter and exchanges between the gang were all there and I was laughing a lot more than I expected to. Sudeikis was on form yet again with his zippy one liners; “Holy shit, he fight clubbed himself! We have a fight clubber!”

However, Charlie Day really got on my nerves this time around. His high pitched screeching and yelling was irritating. I felt he was overcompensating with noise just to remind us he was still in the movie.

The whole Dale/Julia thing was starting to go on a little bit. And after a while you felt that was all his character was bringing. A re-tread of the same old subplot.

The opening news TV segment was hilarious bar a somewhat lazy shower sketch that reeked of the old Austin Powers movies. It got a guilty chuckle but we’ve already had a whole franchise of that.

Bateman was good as Nick. Playing it straight faced with his deadpan delivery made some of the sillier moments and exchanges a bit more entertaining.

Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine were very good. Waltz played the slick smooth talking businessman well. I expected nothing less. However, I felt his character was a little nothingy after the inital con and was pushed to the background. Shame.

I mean, come on. You have Colonel Hans Landa at your disposal.

Chris Pine was something else. Crazy Kirk. Up for a laugh and providing one of the most bonkers performances I’ve seen in some time.

And of course, there was a reunion of some familiar faces. Kevin Spacey made a comical cameo as the gang desperately seek advice. However, where Spacey had me in stitches with his put downs. I felt his “No balls” rant went on far too long.

It just about got away with it BUT I felt that the film had to rely too heavily on these faces to fill the rather thin and flimsy story line. Don’t get me wrong. It’s watchable but the gags are soon far and few between and the bickering between the guys soon gets irritating really fast.

Jennifer Aniston looked stunning yet again and tried to outdo her previous performance in vulgarity but it just didn’t come off as funny or necessary for that matter.

I mean her sex addiction rehab scene with Bateman was hilarious as Nick mistakes the session for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Plenty of sordid innuendos that had me cringing but laughing.

However, her pursuit of Dale was old hat and after a while, you wondered why Julia was even in this sequel? Jamie Foxx also returned and was in fine form as Motherfucker Jones.

BUT again by the end, I felt he overstayed his welcome. A high speed police chase sequence was way too OTT for me and just wasn’t that funny. Texting one handed while driving? Woah. We got a badass over here. Or an idiot.

Jonathan Banks even made an appearance and seemed to do his worst impression of Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad. His character may have been small fry but he was dreadful. I had to double check IMDb to make sure it was definitely the same actor.

For every good gag, there were dozen duds and I felt like it tried to break from the first film’s style (Good) then chickened out and did exactly the same stuff which made the last 20 minutes really flat, predictable and unfunny.

Not completely horrible but not that great either. So-so at best.

2.5/5