by Jeff Alan, Contributing Writer
Lil Rel Howery and John Cena are back as Marcus and Ron in the sequel to the truly bonkers film Vacation Friends. Also returning to the fray are Yvonne Orji as Emily and Meredith Hagner as Kyla, their loving wives. The film brings each couple back together to clash with each other’s own lifestyles — Marcus and Emily being the stricter “Type A” duo, and Ron and Kyla being the absolutely wild and manic companions who see the fun in everything. Together, they make a friendship work and keep things fun and exciting.
Vacation Friends 2 takes place a year or two after the events of the first film, with Ron and Kyla embracing their roles as parents in their usual, carefree, fun-loving way, while Marcus and Emily are contemplating having kids of their own. They all go on a trip together to the Caribbean to spend some much-needed time together, as well as party constantly, as they are well known to do when they are together. However, Marcus as an ulterior motive, which is he was actually brought there on a business trip to pitch a development deal to Korean business, and hopefully get their work. They stay in a luxurious villa with amazing amenities and enough liquor to last any normal person a week, but for them it’s a single night. Ron and Kyla even bring along a babysitter for their child, who is none other than the front desk attendant from the previous film, Maurillio (Carlos Santos).
While they are getting settled into the resort and Marcus preps for his meetings, an unexpected visitor joins them in the form of Kyla’s jailbird father, Reese (Steve Buscemi). From the moment Reese arrives, Marcus is suspicious of his reason for being there and urges the group not to fall victim to Reese’s explanations. Ron is also in a bit of a tough spot because he has never met Kyla’s father before, so spends a great deal of the time trying to prove to Reese that he is a good man who deserves to be with Kyla, though Reese’s standoffish nature puts a lot of doubt in Ron’s mind regarding whether he will ever become worthy enough in Reese’s eyes. And while trying to do is best to impress his new father-in-law, Ron also witnesses Reese meeting with shady individuals and plotting things that could potentially lead to something illegal pertaining to Caribbean drug dealers.
On top of keeping his sporadic friends in check, Marcus is also trying to balance his and Emily’s efforts to get pregnant, and do some impressing of his own with the executives of the company he is trying to woo, specifically Yeon (Ronny Chieng), who is immediately skeptical of Marcus’ willingness to convince his boss to give Marcus’ the job he so desperately needs for his business back in Chicago.
I wanted to go into this with a good attitude — and for the most part, I did — but as the movie slowly progressed, I found myself not interested and downright bored. With the added level of danger and craziness that Buscemi’s character brings to the story, it doesn’t feel as crazy as the first film, which I think is miles better than this is. What works about the first one is that the craziness is a little more “realistic,” in the sense that their actions of partying and drinking and drugs lead to a little bit more of a grounded story; albeit, it’s a story that is still crazy in its own way, but it’s still relatively more likely to happen. With this added element of a drug cartel, it feels as ridiculous as some of these Adam Sandler Netflix movies that keep getting churned out, which have no real meat on the bones and have minimal laughs, the majority of them being cheap.
I don’t think the Marcus’s business subplot is needed for this story at all. Him being uptight about Reese, and the crazy things he gets them into, would have been more than enough to make this movie watchable. In fact, if you took out the business aspect altogether, and focused solely on Reese coming into the picture and the shenanigans they get into, I think it could have brought a higher level of crazy that a sequel of Vacation Friends needed. Adding the business angle on top of Reese and his and Emily’s pregnancy just feels like too much for a movie that doesn’t need that much.
The acting is fine for what it is. Cena does his usual comedy movie routine that I see in nearly each one he does, which isn’t to say he’s bad; it’s just the same. Buscemi is fine, Chieng is fine, Howery is over the top as always, though I am not usually a fan of his. But the standout of this film — as in the previous film — is Hagner. She steals the show with her ditzy, carefree attitude and hilarious lines of dialogue. In the first film she had me laughing really hard with her insanely out-there one liners, and in this one she has quite a few, though there aren’t as many, and they aren’t as funny. Although, there are a few funny lines she has in reference to doing lines of what she thought was cocaine, before realizing what it actually was. She just knows how to bring the funny in these kinds of projects, not to mention having things like Palm Springs and the series Search Party under her belt.
If you’re expecting greatness from this sequel, you won’t find it. There’s not enough to hold your interest for longer than 30 minutes, and the laughs are kind of cheap. I still think a cut storyline, and an expansion on another, would a have made this a much more wild and funny movie, and unfortunately the film suffers because of it.
Rating: Didn’t Like It
Vacation Friends 2 is currently streaming on Hulu
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