“Today, tomorrow, it’s all the same.”
Nyles- Palm Springs
The first Happy Death Day was a surprisingly fun romp. The lead, Jessica Rothe, was cast perfectly. The director, Christopher Landon, was a terrific choice, and the script was witty fun. Happy Death Day 2U was a film I’ve been excited to see because the entire band came back! Well… almost everyone. There was one big thing missing, writer Scott Lobdell.
Happy Death Day 2U starts hot. We follow Carter’s roommate Ryan and realize he’s repeating his days just like Tree in the first film. The difference here is we find out that Ryan and two of his classmates are responsible for the time loop. Ryan, as the protagonist, doesn’t last. The movie quickly rights the ship and makes Tree the protagonist once again. This time, she must figure out how to stop the time loop and get back to her universe. That’s right! We have a multiverse.
What made the first film fun and fresh was the mashup of genres. Time loop + horror + comedy = awesomeness. 2U tries to add in an element of Sci-fi and what ends up happening is a convoluted mess. We know these characters, and we know how they solved the first film’s problems, so the sequel needs to up the ante by making Tree choose between two things she loves. There are real reasons this could have made the moral quandary worth the ride but what the script ends up doing is undermining its lead.
The lack of horror in this film was frustrating. The original did a great job killing off Tree and opened up the slasher genre in a unique way. This film does nothing fun or even the least bit interesting with the deaths. The baby face killer isn’t the focus here. The deaths become tedious for the viewers. There is one fun death, and it has zero consequence on the plot.
Happy Death Day 2U isn’t terrible, but it definitely doesn’t live up to its predecessor. Jessica Rothe is a wonder on the screen, but the lack of a quality script holds her character back. She makes decisions that the Tree at the end of the first film would scoff at. The initial introduction of Ryan as the lead was exciting, and if they had teamed him and Tree together instead of making him a plot device, this film might have been better.
