HUB Movie Review: Horrible Bosses 2

posted January 28, 2015 in CommRadio by Sofia Westin

The saddest trio of criminals is back once again. Though I don’t endorse criminal activity of any kind, I can’t help but think “Oh come on you guys, how did you not think of that?!”

Kurt (Jason Sudeikis, We’re the Millers), Nick (Jason Bateman, This Is Where I Leave You) and Dale (Charlie Day, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) are back as entrepreneurs, a.k.a they are their own bosses now. They’ve created a new exciting item, which billionaire Bert Hansen picks up and becomes their investor-boss. After Hansen backstabs them and cancels the order, the three stooges must band together to exact revenge on Hansen. They get an unlikely recruit when Hansen’s son, Rex (Chris Pine, Into the Woods), who they were going to kidnap for ransom, decides to join them on their kidnapping venture. What could go wrong?

As in the first movie, they consult MF Jones (Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained), and run into two former bosses: Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston, We’re the Millers) (Dale’s ex-boss) and Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey, House of Cards) (Nick’s ex-boss). SPOILER, Kurt’s boss was killed in the first Horrible Bosses (2011). Which is too bad, Bobby Pellit (Colin Farrell) was my favorite horrible boss.

This sequel fared much worse compared to the first one, both in ratings and box office numbers. Metacritic designated it a score of 40, which is higher than RottenTomatoes top critics (surprisingly), which gave it 23. Its audiences had a 54 percent liking rate. IMDb users rated it at 6.6. According to IMDb, the first one raked in around $117 million, and this one only grossed in around $54 million, a major drop from the first one.

On the Penn State Scale...
1—when Penn State loses a game (Ohio State...),
2—an 8 a.m class (which are awful),
3—a canceled 8 a.m class,
4—free books for a year,
and 5—free Creamery for a year,

This sad excuse for a comedy is a 2. Considering the fact that this is a sequel, it should have been way better, simply for the reason that they even decided to do a sequel. Sequels happen when the first one does well. But yet we all roll our eyes and say sequels are never as good as the first. This one applies.

Bateman, Sudeikis and Day have good dynamic as their characters, but sometimes their arguing, which, by the way, is very loud, becomes so overbearing I just wish they would shut up. I often found myself feeling like Bateman’s character quite often, just kind of shaking my head at the idiocy.

Foxx’s character, MF Jones, who, though not included that much, is the best character. His humor isn’t crude, which is refreshing from that of the other characters. Spacey would be included, but all he does is swear, really. 

Instead of resorting to good ol’ comedy, HB sticks to low-level, crude humor to provide their punch lines. This is almost polarizing to its audience, because not everyone likes that humor, which shows in their box office numbers.

In addition to that, most scenes are not those that make you laugh, more like chuckle and frown, asking yourself “Did that just happen?” The first time I actually laughed aloud was when they included some blooper scenes during the end credits. That’s not good.

Horrible Bosses takes a long time to get started, too. It has way too long of a setup and unnecessary scenes thrown in, extending it even longer. But I find they did that for the sake of including the old bosses, Aniston and Spacey, who really didn’t add anything to the plot, just added comedy. And because the writers wish to go along with the crude humor timeline, Aniston's maneater persona definitely had to be included.

Final words: this is a hit or miss movie. You’ll like it or you won’t.

Sofia Westin is a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism and economics. To contact her, email sgw5090@psu.edu.