LOS ANGELES, April 30 (UPI) -- Another Simple Favor, on Prime Video Thursday, is not quite a sequel disaster on the level of Blues Brothers 2000 or Dumb and Dumber To. It does, however, miscalculate its approach as badly as the likes of Analyze That and Another 48 Hrs.
Anna Kendrick returns to star as Stephanie Smothers, who became a true crime vlogger after the events of the first film. The sequel opens with Stephanie on tour for the book she wrote about Emily (Blake Lively) faking her death in the first movie.
Emily is released from prison thanks to the lawyers hired by her new fiance, Dante (Michele Morrone) and asks Stephanie to be her maid of honor at their wedding in Capri. Between Emily's threats to sue Stephanie for using her likeness without permission and Emily needing a publicity boost, the plot doesn't twist her arm too hard to get her to go along.
Still, Stephanie acknowledges throughout the movie that it's weird to reunite with Emily in this way, and the film has a little fun as Stephanie tries to guess what's in store for her. Lively can make banal dialogue sound like ominous threats and Kendrick is good at resisting her intimidation.
Unfortunately, Another Simple Favor relies on mean humor as the characters snipe at each other. They have reason to, as Emily put Stephanie through hell and left her ex-husband Sean (Henry Golding) traumatized. Sean is also forced to attend the wedding to accompany Nick, his son with Emily.
New characters only contribute to the film's mean streak. Dante comes from a mafia family whose rivals, the Baratolos, are wedding guests under a truce, but not without conflict.
For example, Dante's mother, Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci), invites Emily's mother, Margaret (Elizabeth Perkins) and aunt Linda (Allison Janney) to the wedding to blindside Emily. The tone of hostility is no fun, and there are no zingers to speak of either. Sean and Emily resort to insulting each other's private parts at one point.
Other new characters are such caricatures the humor feels lazy. Stephanie's agent, Vicky (Alex Newell) is giddy when people start dying again because of the potential publicity. An FBI agent (Taylor Ortega) is blatantly conspicuous on undercover assignments, plus all the stereotypical mafiosos.
The mystery is more convoluted than the first too, but that feels less egregious than the tone. It becomes a tad easier to watch when the film abandons the nastiness to focus on the mystery, though it doesn't become good per se.
Still, it rings hollow when the film alludes to a case Stephanie worries she got wrong in between movies. Since there are only a handful of flashbacks to that case, it's not enough to elicit emotional resonance.
The film's fashion has not suffered in the follow-up, at least. Emily sports many new fabulous ensembles, including a wardrobe change on a flight. Stephanie still sports cute mom-wear in contrast to Emily's glam.
It's easy to point to the absence of a second book by Darcey Bell as the reason the sequel struggled to become a worthy follow-up. What is more heartbreaking is just that the new movie has a lesser spirit than the first film.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
