Sunday, February 17, 2019

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

Ryan (Phi Vu) wakes up in his car at Bayfield University and immediately heads back to his dorm.  He enters to find Tree (Jessica Rothe) and Carter (Israel Broussard) making out.  He is immediately run out of the room and he heads to his lab.  He is working on a device that will slow time though it hasn't works so far.  However, his fellow students on the project show that the device had a huge power spike last night.  Huh.  What was that about.  Moments later, Dean Roger Bronson arrives to shut down the project on account of the power outages.  Then, Ryan is murdered!

Ryan wakes up in his car at Bayfield University and is confused.  As he heads to the dorm, all the same encounters repeat.  Weird.  By the time he enters the dorm, he is freaking out and refuses to leave.  He explains to Tree and Carter that he was just murdered.  Tree knows exactly what this means.  She briefly recaps her experiences and organizes everyone to find Ryan's murderer before he is killed again.  When she sees Ryan's project, she suddenly understands why she was stuck in a loop the previous day.  Rather than save Ryan, Tree gets thrown back into her loop!  Worse, everything is a little different so she has to start all over to solve the mystery.
 
Despite playing the same situation with the same character, there are enough new twists and reveals to make this a surprisingly good sequel.  It even ends on a teaser for a third entry.  It plays as less of a horror than the last one and plays up the romance between Tree and Carter, giving it a bizarre Rom-Com vibe at times.  The one gripe is the switch from Ryan to Tree.  Having completely forgotten Carter's ill-treated roommate from the previous movie, it wasn't until he entered the dorm that I realized he was a return character.  And though they uncover his murderer, that entire plotline vanishes the moment Tree is shoved back into her loop.  Maybe that will be explored in the next movie.
 
Thumbs up!

No comments: