Vacation Friends 2 (2023)

Tough watch! The original movie narrowly worked for me, I mentioned in my review of it that I wasn't sure how that was the case and any follow-up would very likely fall flat on its face. Unfortunately, I was spot on. <em>'Vacation Friends 2'</em> is such a drag, the actors disappoint and the attempted humour is pretty terrible - not even a smirk was produced at any point. I watched <em>'Dashing Through the Snow'</em> recently and mentioned that Lil Rel Howery almost made that fellow 2023 release work. On this occasion, though, even he couldn't save this one. Yvonne Orji is alright but doesn't get given all that much, even moments after watching I can't recall anything major about her character. John Cena, who is an actor I enjoy, and Meredith Hagner are quite annoying in this, they aren't too dissimilar to what they do in the first film, admittedly, but here their schtick just grates more than it works (which it doesn't at all). Steve Buscemi (big fan) isn't any good either, while Carlos Santos feels pointlessly tacked on. The 2021 flick had five writers attached, this had just the one in director Clay Tarver. That probably explains the drop-off. At least the sequel has the better poster, that's something...