K.T Simpson
Some sequels you do not ask for, but you get regardless. This is one of them – but all I ask for from a movie in this genre is a bit of entertainment, and perhaps a few little scares. You know the type of frights when a balloon pops unexpectedly? That type of scare.
Sadly, “Happy Death Day 2U” doesn’t deliver much. If you cast your mind back to the first film, it wasn’t more than a teeny-horror that developed some form of interest in the realm of “how will she die this time?”.
The sequel takes on the same premise, but this time adds alternate timelines (side note – “The Flash” did it better) and a few new characters to perhaps gauge new interest. It barely achieves that, however, as the newbies are about as interesting as watching my soup heat in the microwave at lunchtime.
The film begins with Ryan (Phi Vu) experience the same phenomena that Tree (Jessica Rothe) did in the first – experiencing a “Groundhog Day” effect in which he relives the same day, ultimately resetting upon being murdered. After explaining his problem to Tree and boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard), Tree vows to help Ryan, as she too has been stuck in this vortex. Ryan leads the duo to his lab, where his crazy science project is set up, and eventually does some fancy schmancy explosions.
As a result, Tree is sucked back into the time loop and is back and re-living the same nightmare, finding her birthday begins to repeat – over and over as it did in the first film. This time, however, a few things have changed, which Ryan explains as being a result of her entering another timeline.
Are you confused yet? Well, that’s because I’m explaining it terribly. And also, because “Happy Death Day 2U” adds so many extra “Inception”-esque levels to it, most of which are unnecessary. Nevertheless, they are there and it all morphs into a comedic-horror which the teens will probably love.
If you’re expecting a full-blown horror/thriller movie, watch something else, because “Happy Death Day 2U” has more of a “Back to the Future” vibe, especially when you take note of how similar the scores are for each film. Where it differs from the first flick is the addition of some physics, which leaves you expecting that Sheldon Cooper will emerge to correct the formulas on the whiteboard at some point. What happens instead, is Tree becomes the physicist, memorizing crazy equations that probably took Einstein a lot longer to come up with.
Look, the acting in “Happy Death Day 2U” is great, and Rothe is the stand-out as the was in the first film. She’s a badass chick, and I want to be her. Director Christopher Landon has achieved his goal of explaining why Tree entered the time loop, and creating more of a genre film than a full-blown horror you’d expect from Blumhouse Productions. Unfortunately it’s just a little messy, and it results in a chaotic comedy that lacks a lot of the horror elements audiences itch to see.
