By John Mulderig
NEW YORK (CNS) — Like its 2017 predecessor, “Happy Death Day 2U” (Universal) is all about being trapped in time.
But a scattershot effort to cross genres and the undercutting of its essentially sound basic values by gory moments and some vulgar content may leave viewers of writer and returning director Christopher Landon’s follow-up feeling as though they’re the ones confined.
One example of the lack of craft and focus keeping the movie off kilter involves the fate of Tree (Jessica Rothe), the college-student protagonist of the original.
At first, together with her boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard), she’s merely called upon to aid another veteran character, Carter’s science-nerd roommate Ryan (Phi Vu), struggle with the fact that he’s suddenly suffering the same fate she did in the kickoff. To wit, he’s forced to experience an endlessly repeating day, during which he’s murdered by a babyface mask-wearing, knife-wielding killer.
Yet, after a few scenes along those lines, the experimental device Ryan has created — which seems to be the cause of the problem — goes further awry and puts Tree herself right back in her original dilemma, reliving her fatal birthday over and over, though this time in a parallel universe where at least some of the villains are now innocent. Ryan’s predicament is never revisited.
If that sounds abrupt and confusing, it is. And matters are not ameliorated by Landon’s apparent assumption that the audience will remember in detail the relationships of the first film. Throw in his effort to have the picture function simultaneously as a slasher flick, a comedy and a message-bearing emotional drama and it’s not only newbies who are likely to feel a bit adrift.
Tree, who underwent a gradual conversion in her previous outing, has further respectable lessons to learn in this one. They involve the sacrifices love sometimes requires and even the character-building potential of suffering — not a theme often encountered in mainstream Hollywood fare. There’s also a fairly strong condemnation of the adulterous affair two characters have been carrying on, a relationship that bears evil fruit.
But we’re soon back to the mayhem that awaits at the end of each daily cycle and the race to fix Ryan’s machine and liberate Tree.
The script, moreover, takes at least an implicitly benign view of shacking up; it also has Tree congratulating a character who was revealed to be gay in the earlier iteration on finding himself part of a same-sex couple. A sequence in which Tree more than once pre-empts her stalker by killing herself before he can get to her, however, is too removed from reality to have any genuine moral impact.
On balance, discerning moviegoers would do well to spare themselves this messy exercise in deja vu all over again.
The film contains scenes of bloody violence, suicide, an adultery theme, cohabitation, mature references, including to homosexuality, a couple of profanities and a few mild oaths, at least one rough and numerous crude terms as well as obscene gestures. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.