Adam is growing up mostly
The Murder Mystery 2: A Grateful Couple Who Gets Involved in a Murder Explanation for a Destination Wedding
“Murder Mystery 2” picks up where the first film left off, with Nick and Audrey having parlayed their crime-solving success into a career as professional gumshoes. This sequel works just as well as the original because it remains grounded in the mundane rhythms of a long-term marriage. In a performance that bristles with comic realism, Sandler channels a hangdog torpor, almost a melancholic air. He gets defensive about the size of his hands if he has to carry the ransom for a hostage exchange, as well as fighting with his wife about what snacks to eat before bed. This is a man with more down-to-earth concerns than the mystery he is ostensibly solving. Sandler, with surly charisma, makes those concerns palpable.
The business of the detective agency co-created by Adam Sandler and Jim Romenesko has been struggling since the events of the first movie, but they still have a gag about their name. The two jump at the chance to go to a destination wedding on an island paradise thrown by the Maharajah, who is marrying Claudette, who has a “trophy wife” written all over her.
When Nick and Hepburn are kidnapped, they jump into detective mode, which leads to them going to Paris without doing anything to help the plot.
Murder Mystery 2: The comedy of a simpleton in a mock comedy of horror films, and what we’re expecting from “Hubie Halloween”
“Murder Mystery” might be the epitome of what amounts to a “Netflix movie,” which is to say that as long as you’re paying for a subscription already, it’s not much of a gamble (other than 80-some-odd minutes of your time) to punch up a “You might like” title with stars you’ve enjoyed in the past.
That is also indicative of the cynical way in which this sequel has been thrown together despite attracting the likes of Laurent and Mark Strong to help class it up. The near-four-year gap between movies does help in one respect, allowing people to largely forget what left them unimpressed about the original.
It was fitting that one of the comedy bits ended with Nick trying to prolong the call so that the authorities could trace it, mangling words and pretending he can’t hear.
While there’s not much deeper meaning in “Murder Mystery 2,” consider that an apt metaphor for a project where everyone pretty much seems to be just phoning it in.
This exchange is typical of the couple’s banter, which ranges in the films from tender to acrimonious to protective, sometimes in the span of a single line. Sandler plays the devoted but put-upon husband with a delicate balance of compassion and aloofness, and in moments like this, a wounded candor comes through that is oddly touching. While there’s humor in Nick’s jealousy of his rich and handsome competitor, Sandler laces it with a feeling of threatened ego and husbandly pridefulness. You get a real sense that Nick loves Audrey, and an equally clear impression of how 15 years of husband-and-wife routine have calcified their partnership.
This maturation helps even the broadest comedy of the recent past by the man. In the new movie, “Hubie Halloween”, which will be released on Netflix next year, we are treated to a sweet-natured mockery of horror movies, starring Adam Sandler as a simpleton who resembles the characters he played in “Little Nicky” and “The Waterboy.” In those films, Sandler speaks in an abrasive voice. It is the same as before, “Hubie” leans into Sandler’s talent for sweet humor, counterbalancing it with a more sentimental touch. There’s always been a deep-seated earnestness in his work: Consider the Frank Capra-esque ending of his mawkish (and underappreciated) farce “Click” (2006). Lately, alongside the weariness, that warmth has come to the fore.
