Saturday, 3 May 2025

Another Simple Favor (2025)

SPOILERS BELOW

Probably a little bit worse than the first one, as it throws more pointless stuff into the mix.

Otherwise it pretty much has the same issues. Firstly, the twists are obvious. Mention that stillborn triplet Charity was burned dropped into the conversation apropos of nothing? Clearly still alive, and we see a photo ostensibly of her sister scheming with the aunt but can't see her face so obviously that's actually Charity and she and the aunt are working together. (This is particularly weird, as they are identical and so hiding her face is completely pointless.) The rival mob boss of equal age and sexiness to his counterpart cries when the latter is killed? Clearly they're secret gay lovers. (This never has any effect on the story?) The kid is flying a drone with a camera around the whole time? Clearly that's going to be revealed to have recorded some evidence at some point, livestreamed a confession or whatever... well no, actually, they don't do anything that integrated with it, it just flies into someone's face during a fight scene. And that's about it for the twists through the whole story - turns out it wasn't the serial murderer doing the murders this time, it was her identical twin. Though this doesn't really make any functional difference either except to allow for the thriller-y second half to happen. Maybe one of these pointless extra details will get used in the next movie (which they awkwardly line up in a final scene), as the mention of a dead triplet in the first one did here (according to Feig the detail was not an intentional set-up and it took them a few drafts of the sequel before realising they should use it - it's a smart move, though one ruined by the loud signposting), like the FBI agent who is utterly useless and about whom the detective tries to tell Stephanie something but gets cut off and then is promptly killed having added nothing to the story.
And yes, that is the second repeated issue - the mystery is essentially tied up halfway through the movie.

The third issue, Kendrick being a dull lead, is one they try to fix by saying that she's toughened up now, but it is painfully awkward watching her aim for a Kristen Bell level of sass and landing on third-rate mean girl. The only time it ever works is when Stephanie is given sodium pentothal - perhaps they should have had her high through the whole movie. But sadly they don't commit to it so she spends the movie moving between original milquetoast mode and vague Karen energy. And as in the first movie, the nicey-nice /straitlaced protagonist concept isn't done in an interesting funny way as with, say, Hot Fuzz or Elsbeth.  I don't think most of this is Kendrick's fault, she's given bad dialogue to work with, but she isn't able to somehow spin gold out of it. And once again, the film has a bunch of good actors given fun characters but very little to do with them. At first I thought that having everyone on a small island this time would allow them to get more time and to intermingle, to interact with the plot, but no.

Sidenote: The movie's big creative swing, having Lively play two sisters in a scene where one roofies and then molests the other, is technically impressive but a tonal disaster.

Rating: Not good. All the issues of the first one, a little more cluttered, and Lively is less fun.

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