HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 movie review

I'm trying to imagine how much better The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would be if Jamie Foxx was playing his character in this movie rather than Electro.

Horrible Bosses 2 is the sequel to the 2011 film Horrible Bosses, a surprisingly funny comedy (at least to me, anyway) about three average dudes he form a plan to kill their bosses. A few years later, we have this movie, where the same three average dudes form a plan to kidnap the son of a rich businessman who stole their new business from them.

As I said, I quite enjoyed Horrible Bosses unlike most people, so I was pretty optimistic going in, and honestly, I had real nice time with this movie.

The thing that makes this movie is the cast. This movie has assembled an excellent team of comedic actors. The three leads, Charlie Day, Jason Bateman and Jason Sudekis, just kill it. They're chemistry is good, they're just terrific on screen, and it's just all laughs with them. Jennifer Aniston and Jamie Foxx return from their roles in the first film, and though they're not a big part of the movie, they really were funny in it. I really missed them playing these types of roles. Speaking of which, finally! Chris Pine returns to a role that showcases both his charisma and his charm on screen. Of course, he plays a douchebag, but he's a likeable douchebag. He kills it, and I really hope he does more of these roles, no more glum and serious spy roles please. Sadly, I got to say Christoph Waltz and Jonathan Banks were super underutilized in the movie. They had Christoph Waltz come in, and you don't even give him that many good lines nor a lot of screentime? Seems like a waste of an opportunity to me. Also, Jonathan Banks phoned it in. I only remembered he was in the movie while looking at Wikipedia looking at how to spell the cast's names... yeah, that's how forgettable he is. However, those two underutilized actors don't get in the way of me praising this excellent comedic cast.

Now, there's a lot of slapstick and dumb humor and this movie. It's some pretty dumb people doing idiotic things. Some people might not find that funny, but I found the way they executed it to be in the "safe zone"of dumb humor, not too Three Stooges-like. There's a lot of really good jokes in there, and I laughed quite a lot. There's only one really big laugh though. I'm not going to spoil it, just saying that it was worth the ticket for me.

Another thing I admire about this sequel is that it doesn't retread the same plot as the original. We saw with The Hangover Part II how the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" schluck can ruin the series, but we also saw with 22 Jump Street how "being self-aware and making fun of the fact that you're a retread of the original" works. This movie is neither, because it plays it safe, and does something different. Nothing wrong with playing it safe, but it's nothing memorable either.

 There are a lot of funny parts, true, but there are also a lot of dull moments, moments you wish you could just fast forward through. This happens a lot, but luckily, not a lot consecutively, because that would've really killed the film more than it did.

Horrible Bosses 2 is a fun enough comedy sequel. It's got a great comedic cast, a fun and new premise, a lot of entertaining scenes, and a lot of boring uninspired scenes. Still a fun time at the theaters, mainly because good comedies are always fun to watch in theaters.