‘Vacation Friends 2’ Review: Last Resort

The 2021 comedy “Vacation Friends” had a premise so skinny that it scarcely counts as excessive idea: One couple befriends one other couple on vacation, solely to comprehend that the opposite couple is just a little too wild. It labored, simply barely, as a result of the {couples} have been performed by Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, Meredith Hagner and John Cena, all of them humorous and charming with bubbly, upbeat chemistry. The story of clashing personalities and adventures gone improper was boring and uninspired, however the solid members, clearly having fun with themselves, saved issues brisk and mildly entertaining.

That solid returns for “Vacation Friends 2,” a perfunctory sequel with a fair duller story. (The first film’s director, Clay Tarver, returns too.) Howery and Orji, because the timid newlyweds Marcus and Emily, are off on one other vacation with their kooky pals Ron and Kyla (Cena and Hagner), this time at a luxurious resort within the Caribbean. They’re joined by Kyla’s father, Reese (Steve Buscemi), a squirrelly man with a prison previous whose approval Ron desperately seeks, and by Yeon (Ronny Chieng), a testy proprietor of the resort, with whom Marcus hopes to land a enterprise deal.

Marcus’s efforts to woo Yeon, in addition to Ron’s marketing campaign to win over his skeptical father-in-law, are nothing greater than glorified sitcom plots, and because the harried pals careen throughout the resort by a sequence of comical mishaps, the film has the texture of a TV rerun. More compelling are the too-rare moments of plotless leisure, when the charismatic holidaymakers guzzle rum, snort cocaine and simply riff. Cena manages to squeeze a really humorous bit from the motion of selecting up a brunch menu — no synthetic dramatic stakes essential.

Vacation Friends 2
Rated R for robust language, sexual content material, motion violence, drug use and extra vacation debauchery. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Hulu.