Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston return in the Netflix sequel cleverly (not really) named Murder Mystery 2 which runs about 90 minutes long with over 10 minutes of credits. That means, the actual plot couldn’t even be stretched out to an hour and a half. I’m sure there were some scenes cut but maybe Netlfix or Sandler who produced the movie through his own Happy Madison Production company realized that audiences would lose interest.
Netflix has been both a blessing and curse to Sandler’s career since he signed production deals with them many years ago. Most of them have been hard to sit through. Has anyone been able to sit through Sandy Wexler? I stopped watching a third the way in. Then there was his work with Noah Baumbach in The Meyerowitz Stories where he costarred with Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller and Emma Thompson and received some of the best reviews of his career. Then, there was his underrated performance in the 2022 basketball sports drama Hustle. Sandler looked like he was finally grown up with a little grey in his beard and a more reserved performance, it’s a shame it flew under the radar during award season.
Now, he’s return to what works best. The original Murder Mystery wasn’t one of the best movies, but it’s mixture of black comedy and high-octane action made for a welcome hour and a half of escapism. So, why mix the formula up with a sequel and just do what worked the first time. Sandler and Aniston return as Nick and Audrey Spitz four years after the events in Monte Carlo. They’ve become full-time private detectives, which means in comedies, they’re most inept and incompetent in what they do.
Their friend, Vikram “The Maharajah” Govindan (Adeel Akhtar) invites them to his private island for his marriage to Claudette (Melanie Laurent) and ends up getting kidnapped. And of course, there’s an entire group of people who could be behind it. Is it his jealous sister, Saira (Kuhoo Verma)? Or his jealous ex, Countess Sekou (Jodie Turner-Smith)?
If you’ve seen these type of movies, you know there’s a lot of suspicions and false revelations along with double crosses on top of double crosses as Nicky and Audrey find themselves thrown into the mix, traveling around exotic locales and ending in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, because why not. There is a nice addition of Connor Miller (a scene-stealing Mark Strong parodying his roles) as a former MI6 hostage negotiator turned mercenary for hire.
Sandler and Aniston manage to create enough good chemistry to make the movie watchable. Both of them became famous around the early 1990s on NBC. Sandler seemed to appeal to the frat boy humor that had gone dormant in the latter half of the 1980s and Aniston seemed to appeal to frat boys themselves as her hair styles and nude bottom Rolling Stone covers made her a cultural icon.
Both are in their mid-50s now and this is their third time pairing together. Not to give too much away but the movie hints that a third Murder Mystery will be coming. What is good about Aniston’s performance is how well she has been at doing comedy over the years. Unfortunately, like Sandler, it had her railroaded in typical roles where she was never really given a good opportunity to act seriously.
It’s not a good movie, but it’s a good-enough movie to watch so you don’t have to think too hard. Not to give too much away but you know that a certain character isn’t exactly dead and that the most extraneous character is probably behind it all.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 