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Vacation Friends 2 (2023)

Updated: Sep 10, 2023

My quick rating - 5,4/10. We enjoyed the first one so why not check out this sequel? Seems the entire cast has returned. In case you cannot see John Cena, he is there along with his crazy wife Meredith Hagner (The joke is getting old although Miz just used it last week on TV.) They absolutely wasted the ultra-talented Steve Buscemi and left him with jokes that, like most in this flick, fell flat. It wasn't a horrible sequel, it just seemed really lazy and uninspired. This time around, newly married Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) and Emily (Yvonne Orji) invite Ron and Kyla to join them on an all-expenses-paid trip to a Caribbean resort. If you have seen the first flick, you know that things aren't going to go as planned, and as soon as Kyla's recently released from prison father (Buscemi) shows up at the vacation oasis, the entire trip is sent into total chaos. The setup was ripe for plenty of decent action along with well-placed one-liners but it seems Clay Tarver had the creative well run dry after the first one. More often than not, scenes went on entirely too long for a marginal payout. The entire cast and much of the crew are the same from the first go-round yet still missed the mark. Even though I realize I am pointing out quite a bit of the bad, there is some good, and much of it comes from Hagner and her uncensored way of speaking to anyone within earshot. Some of the best laughs come from her wild interjections at the most inopportune times. The cast as a whole really does mesh together very well it is just they didn't have the material to work with. I almost forgot Ronny Chieng who did nail his parts in this one playing the serious corporate guy. He was actually given some good material to work with and did give a bit of relief to the side story they have going on. The sight gags weren't as effective, and the action didn't really have much of a place. The juggling between these two which was the crime element that Buscemi brings in and the job pitch that Marcus is trying to make all while Ron is attempting to win the approval of Kyla's father just got all mumbled up. Maybe just too many ideas not weaving together well enough. I will leave that for you to decide if you check it out.

Another Hulu original release.


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