For years people I know have railed against Rush singer Geddy Lee’ssinging voice. His sound, to some—and especially on the early stuff—can feelshrill. One friend asked me how the guy doesn’t break windows.
Because I love Geddy Lee, I had no idea what his detractors meantuntil now. Charlie Day is the Geddy Lee of contemporary comedies. How viewerscan find a guy with the most nasally, whiny, ear-piercing shriek funny isbeyond me.
In short, my experience with Horrible Bosses 2 lapses fromthe objective into the subjective. Day’s voice is worse than nails on a chalkboard,and his idea of comedy, at least in this movie, is to try to shout over thepeople he’s acting with in order to make jokes or read lines or improvise orwhatever the hell he’s doing. The improvisation, and there’s a ton of it, goeson and on and on and on and…repeating a lame joke doesn’t make funny; it makesit miserable.
It’s unfortunate, then, that Day doesn’t do much in HorribleBosses 2 but scream. And that might be fine and dandy if the movie weren’ta total, complete and in all other ways, giant piece of shit. There are fourlaughs in Horrible Bosses 2, two big and two little.
This time around, Nick (Jason Bateman looking bored), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis),and Dale (Day), intent on working for themselves, have invented somethingcalled the Shower Buddy. It lets its users…oh, who cares? It exists only as ameans to get the plot moving and to make a stale visual gag that has Dalelooking like he’s sucking Kurt off in a live-TV demonstration.
Enter Rex Hanson (Chris Pine) and his father, Bert (ChristophWaltz), who run an enormous company that wants an exclusive license for theShower Buddy. But because Nick, Kurt and Dale are idiots, they get screwed outof their start-up money and the Hansons plan on purchasing, manufacturing andselling the Shower Buddy for super cheap.
Enter a kidnap plot, in which the dolts try to swipe Rex in exchangefor their money. It might be interesting or at least diverting if thescreenwriters and director made the main characters as awful as the badguys—who says you have to like leading men?—but instead Nick deadpans and lookstired while Kurt and Dale do things that are so stupid that they defy logic,even in a dumb comedy.
For example, Dale has a way of announcing whatever illegal deedthey’re about to commit the moment he bumps into someone who could get him introuble. Plus, Kurt was a sleeze in the first movie; in this one, he’s asstupid as Dale, dropping identifying documents in a house they’re breaking intoand not caring because…I’m not sure why. Because the screenplay demands it? Itmakes no sense.
The four laughs all concern Jennifer Aniston, gamely reprising herrole as Dale’s former boss, and Jamie Foxx, who just wants to open a Pinkberry.But at 108 minutes, you deserve more than a laugh every 27 minutes. If this isthe future of comedy, I fucking weep for the future. Director Sean Anders isresponsible for the reprehensible That’s My Boy and co-wrote thelaugh-free Dumb and Dumber To. Add this to the dung heap.
HORRIBLE BOSSES 2
Directedby Sean Anders
With Bateman, Sudeikis and Day
Regal Stadium 14
R
108 min.
