Adam Sandler’s Netflix comedies are slowly getting better

Viewers tune in to Netflix for March 31 Murder mystery 2, starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, one can reasonably expect certain things since the movie is one of Sandler’s many Happy Madison productions for the streaming service. It’s clear that Sandler is once again playing a common-folk type who accidentally stumbles into luxury. Of course, the ensemble features sparsely drawn supporting characters who mostly exist so that Sandler and his newest on-screen wife can take cheesy shots of their transparently bad (or just plain odd) behavior. As usual, the conspiracy is of a ramshackle nature, possibly imposed by Sandler and his Happy Madison staffers.

For these routines, Murder mystery 2 adds even more sequel-related certainties: Nick Spitz (Sandler) and his wife, Audrey (Aniston), bicker again and solve a crime while on vacation. (But if you assume the central crime will be a true murder mystery, you’ve either not given Happy Madison enough credit or way too much.) Anyone who’s seen the 2019 movies Murder Mystery will know what they are getting into. The only surprise: At this point, the baseline for Sandler’s routine comedies has moved up several notches.

Sandler’s relationship with Netflix didn’t start this way. Hopes that he would use his long-standing deal with the streamer to get out of his 2010s rut ​​were dashed when his 2015 film The ridiculous 6a western with a long-running dream project, was just as sloppy and crude as the major studio’s 2013 release Adults 2. Its successor, the 2016 Netflix movie The switch — a strangely violent buddy comedy starring David Spade — mostly felt like a listless exercise with both men genuinely missing their late friend Chris Farley.

But a few years after he made his first Netflix pact, Sandler’s wide-ranging comedies began to show signs of genuine effort. 2018 The week of is one of his best comedies ever, and that of 2022 Rush is a grounded sports drama with hardly any shtick. Is he thinking more about his day job, encouraged by his work for directors like Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories) and the Safdie brothers (Uncut gems)? Or did he just get so bored of doing standard Happy Madison movies as he watched the screen? Reasons aside, it seems Sandler’s comedic instincts have been honed, and Murder mystery 2 is compelling evidence – not because it’s one of his best projects, but because it isn’t, and yet it still manages to be a pretty good time.

The film opens with clear signs of post-production tinkering. Out-of-nowhere voice-over fills in the audience in the background of the central couple Murder Mystery: While on a long-postponed vacation, retired cop Nick and hairdresser Audrey stumble upon a Death on the Nile-like murder on a yacht, and while they were initially suspected of committing that murder, they ended up solving the case instead. This catch-up is clipped together with bits and pieces explaining what happened next. Since their first European adventure, Nick and Audrey have opened their own private detective agency and things are not going well, as evidenced by snippets of a sequence where they investigate a husband’s infidelity and discover that he was just planning a surprise party for his wife. .

This opening feels like director Jeremy Garelick is hastily salvaging at least 10 minutes of cut footage from the previous movie, largely because it features some marketable Sandler/Aniston antics and a familiar face. (Annie Mumolo van Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, playing the not-quite-rejected wife.) But even this clumsy attempt to get to the point shows some concern; many Sandler comedies have been allowed to slack off by the two o’clock mark when someone had the sensibility to make sure that Murder mystery 2 runs a cool 90 minutes.

Soon Nick and Audrey attend the lavish wedding of the Maharaja (Adeel Akhtar) they met in the previous film. And soon a corpse lies in their midst, this time followed by a kidnapping. Suspects include fabulously wealthy characters played by an international cast including Mélanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith, Kuhoo Verma, Enrique Arce and John Kani (returning from the first film).

Though mercenary badass Miller (Mark Strong) is enlisted to track down the kidnappers, Nick and Audrey are encouraged by their previous mystery solving, so they try to help with the new case, which eventually takes them to Paris. Where the first Murder Mystery was a comedic spin on Agatha Christie, but the sequel mixes in some more generic thriller ingredients, with slapstick-style chases and narrow escapes from massive house fires. The supporting characters, meanwhile, aren’t likable or dimensioned enough to allow for a meaningful twist, or even a clever solution to the sort of mystery – they’re all equally likely cardboard suspects.

But the mysterious plot does not matter. It provides just enough distraction to keep Sandler and his associates away from their worst instincts. There are flashes of those instincts early on, with Sandler and Aniston cosplaying as middle class, gazing at their surroundings on a lush Caribbean island. Tellingly, they don’t seem as impressed with the natural beauty on display as they do with the opulence of the over-the-top wedding gift bags. (If that’s meant to be Ugly American commentary, the joke doesn’t get across, though Sandler’s joke about trying to wear shorts to Tavern on the Green home feels like it comes from the actor’s soul.) Once Nick and Audrey reunite, shooting in detective mode makes the film looser, crazier and more charming.

The pair’s bickering also becomes more enjoyable in the heat of battle, as they argue over who is better equipped to handle a gun. (Hint: It’s not the one who has years of NYPD experience.) Nick and Audrey are essentially a less erudite, middle-aged version of Nick and Nora Charles, the wealthy husband-and-wife sleuths from the six-film Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy. The original mystery from 1934 The thin man is a fresh mystery comedy classic, while the sequels are generally regarded as undemanding, good enough imitations of the original – which is also a perfect description of Murder mystery 2.

That might sound like faint praise, but hey, not many Netflix original movies could stand up to comparison the classic Thin man follow-up. So many Netflix-produced movies end up in a creepy zone somewhere between lavish theatrical movies and cheesy TV movies. But Sandler’s Happy Madison work makes sense on a streaming channel, especially as his audience has shifted from bygone shopping multiplexes to the coziness of their couches. Not less than There will be blood writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has praised the virtues of the Sandler comedy as a mood-enhancing comfort watch.

Whenever Anderson’s praise was dug up or repeated during an interview, it came with a bittersweet sting for a while, as he usually referenced past Sandler comedies like Happy Gilmore or Big Daddy. There must be an audience that thinks equally positively about it Just get on with it or Jack and Jill (and hey, that theater of the grotesque has its moments), but those later films have such a queer, intimidating contempt for large segments of humanity that they put up barriers around Sandler’s nice-schnook sweetness.

Murder mystery 2 features a better class of schnookery. Even at its most dazzling, it’s not stupid enough to be offensive. The occasional self-esteem of Sandler’s self-directed moral universe fits the archetype of the tenacious detective, even if his Nick isn’t meant to be a Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot-level genius. The film itself is also a convincing facsimile of better thrillers, thanks to the fine cinematography of Bojan Bazelli, who has worked with Gore Verbinski and Abel Ferrara and recently launched debates with his upcoming project. Peter Pan and Wendy of The Green Knight director David Lowery. Of Murder mystery 2Bazelli shoots more on location than in a number of recent mega-budget productions.

Murder mystery 2 actually got a short run in theaters, and it didn’t seem out of proportion on the big screen. Still, it’s an ideal display for an airplane or a hotel room, and not because it looks cheap (it’s not) or disposable (although it is). Instead, it’s because this Netflix movie offers a humble, portable version of Hollywood travelogue escapism, one that’s more focused and fun than Sandler just wandering around a vacation retreat with his friends, as he did a decade ago. often did. Right now, much better filmmakers have done a great job for Netflix in enabling the company to fund their existing vision. But Sandler may be the first movie star to fully adapt his rhythms to the streaming era — and hone his game at the same time.