Movie Review Vacation Friends 2 (2023)
Friends Holiday 2 , 2023.
Director: Clay Tarver.
Starring Lil Real Howry, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, Meredith Hagner, Steve Buscemi, Carlos Santos, Ronnie Cheung, Arnold Y Kim, Jimmy Hector, Jean-Baptiste Lavinsky, Julie Cerda, Hugh Moore, Ty Love, Kevin Yamada, Brandon. St Clair and Olivia Grace Applegate.
Summary :
A couple meets another couple while on vacation in Mexico, but when they return home, their friendship takes a strange turn.
This article was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Friends on Vacation 2 would not exist without the work of the writers and actors currently on strike.
Writer-director Clay Tarver returns for Friends on Vacation 2 , this time without co-writer Tom Mullen and the writing team of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (most recently known for their faithful adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons ), and onwards you can't do without them. I think these are important missing elements in balancing humor and heart and building the comedy around the elements of observing different types of couples.
Take Friends' First Vacation , which initially revolves around an impending marriage and ends with shenanigans and drama that threaten to turn anything directly related to love into disaster. Here, Clay Tarver revisits a third act that follows the hunt for a large amount of missing drug money that ends up near the Caribbean resort where the characters are staying, and eventually the groundbreaking survival and haunt sequence leads. . It's a classic example of a sequel mistakenly feeling the need to be bigger, bolder, wilder and crazier, and that's what makes comedy so natural and entertaining.
It's also fair to say that Clay Tarver doesn't have a clear understanding of who these characters are and how to make their actions understandable without getting boring. When married couple Marcus and Emily (Lil Real Horry and Yvonne Orji) and Ron and Kayla (John Cena and Meredith Hagner) reappear, the latter couple spiritedly plays pranks on the ex-couple at the airport. . Ron and Kayla are joined by their newborn babysitter, Murilo (Carlos Santos), as it is clear they are not cut out to be parents.
Meanwhile, Marcus says he's "hopeful" and ready to get involved over the holidays, and is relieved to learn that Ron and Kayla are uncomfortable when a successful CEO meets him to oversee construction of a Chicago hotel ensure. already gone. Marcus also expresses his feelings for his child to Emily. Emily replies, "Yes," but is nervous and admits that she is not, and cannot be, a mother.
There are also unnecessary breaks in this successful dynamic: the vice president (Ronnie Chan) shows up, meets with Marcus and reassures him that the company will never approve his plan. Then the sudden arrival of Kira's incarcerated father disrupts the good behavior of Rhys (the reliable and cheerful Steve Buscemi). do a lot. The wives, especially, seem to be running out of money and not much they can do (Meredith Hagler keeps yelling that her father is a good person, and Emily searches for the right moment to admit that she doesn't want to). Children).
There are a few fun gags, including a drinking game and an extended casino sequence, but for the most part Clay Tarver has replaced the character dynamics with a more relatable human comedy of outrageous menace and unbridled mayhem. In Friends on Vacation 2, the group plays strong and the chemistry is still there, but the narrative flows together. The results at this point are duller and more akin to jet lag.
Dim Legend Rating - Movie: ★★ / Movie: ★★★
Robert Kosder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics' Choice Association. He is also the editor-in-chief of Flickering Myth. For more reviews, click here, follow me on Twitter or LetterboxD, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com.
