Happy Death Day 2U

So I was surprised at how irreverently enjoyable the first movie was, so I figured who knows, maybe a sequel to a movie nobody asked for could actually be as good as the original. Turns out, there was another surprise in the works.

Story- This movie essentially took the 22 Jump Street sequel approach for the most part, but it ended up being it's own thing (for the most part) in the end. Tree, through methods "cuz science" ends up back on that fateful Monday birthday of hers, but this time in a parallel universe. She has to determine how to fix it, or keep living the same Monday. Yikes, mondays already sucked, imagine dying over and over again. Starting with the one negative I can think of, there are certain plot holes, but I also don't know much about parallel universes and I suspect most of the audience wouldn't either so I feel like that plays to a filmmaker's benefit. The dialogue in this movie is pretty realistic, unlike movies such as wish upon and the bye bye guy (just saw that garbage recently so it's fresh in my mind to roast) where they found all their realistic dialogue from reddit or something. I also really liked the serious moral choices Tree has to face when presented with what she knows about her life in the different parallel universes. It reminded me of the game Life is Strange because that game is about rewinding time and questioning your moral judgements and how they'll impact the future. This movie really does play to that cheese factor more often than not, but I honestly enjoyed that. Overall, very unique concept and I'm surprisingly actually ok if they do deliver one more sequel, because the concept they set up is ridiculous yet could go very well. I just hope this movie actually makes enough for the studio to warrant a sequel. Wow, never thought I'd say those words for movies that weren't John Wick.

Cinematography/Props/Editing- I'm going to start with editing first, because this I feel may have shown its budget restraints the most. There's one scene in particular where you see electric sparks, and it looks like lesser lightning from Star Wars ep 3 from the ever so meme-y Palpatine. Other than that, it actually isn't shot half bad. I intended on critiquing the special effects due to the quality however for the budget they had of 9 million, I feel they made up for it in other ways. The cinematography at first too I intended on critiquing, however it too "matured" over time so to speak. In particular I loved in this and the first movie the cool filming techniques/transitions they utilize. The props are pretty basic for taking place on a college campus, with the exception of "Missy", which looks sort of like the death trap from Jigsaw, which I saw on a YouTube video. These movies love their montages, and I do too. In the first it was different ways of her trying to find out who her killer was, dying in ridiculous ways, and in this one (I assume it's not spoiling it but if it is SPOILER ALERT) she goes through a bunch of different ridiculous ways to kill herself to reset the day. I listened to an interview where she said she was involved with the crew coming up with different ridiculous ways for her to die, and how it was morbidly funny, and I agree too.

Acting- Honestly, I didn't think this was that strong at first, with one exception, which I'll get to after this comment. It seemed that, at first, it was either due to cheesy dialogue or that the actors may not have been as experienced, but it got a little bit better as the movie wore on. However, I obviously can't mention how amazing Jessica Rothe is. She is electric and just steals every scene she's in. With seemingly stupid cash grab movies like this, you always can tell that usually the actors don't really care, but this (for the most part) isn't just a cash grab, and Jessica clearly cares about how she performs. Just the things she's willing to do, the emotion she bring to the table in the more touching scenes, the comedy she brings in the "I do not care at all and I'm over this" department is just hilarious to see. I really hope she ends up getting more roles like this, because she works it perfectly. I do have to give a shout out to Rachel Matthews for one of the most ridiculous but funny 1950's slapstick type comedy scenes in this movie that was seriously hilarious.

Directing- Christopher Landon's first two directing credits are meh, so let's count this and the original as his first two "real" credits, and I have to give him props. Blumhouse obviously for the most part typically opts into using smaller directors, and I think that is a nice way to get these people some reels for their experience. I think overall he did a relatively good job with this movie. As mentioned earlier he utilizes Jessica to her full potential which gets a commendation in my book. I think he brought a Scream/Ghostbusters (and obviously Groundhog Day) tone to this movie, which are as good as any movies to draw influence from.

Soundtrack/Audio- This was probably the one part that I felt did end up falling slightly flatter. Several of the OST tracks were noticeably generic, but they used different licensed tracks to sort of "diffuse" the generic tone of the music. Using an upbeat Paramore song in a darkly comedic montage is pretty clever. Not everything can be hit out of the park, but it didn't ever detract from the movie experience. I will say the fact that U2 wasn't on the soundtrack was disappointing (just kidding, I don't like the band, I just noticed 2 and U were in the title so I had to mention that).

Final Verdict- B+. I'm feeling generous, and it was a better sequel than a lot of other churned out sequels in recent memory. I say this a lot, especially lately, but this movie certainly was way better than it had any right to be. It may be cliche in parts, but they rely on other tongue in cheek source material themes (I drew comparisons between this and They Live, especially given that Carter has a poster of it in his room) to get their comedy across. I'd actually recommend going to see it, especially because this movie deserves to do way better than that terrible movie with Rebel Wilson, seriously. Wow, I would've never expected to have this much to say about I movie I didn't really have any expectations for, credit to it.

#comedy #horror #JessicaRothe #SciFi