Happy Death Day 2U 4Ever and Ever?
The sequel to Scott Lobdell’s (X-Men comic books) very clever screenplay for Happy Death Day is clever in its own right. Clever for the sake of clever, however, is always a problem. Clever doesn’t so much indicate intelligence and while the first and to some degree the latter dabble in intelligent, director Christopher Landon appears to be too content with clever to allow the really smart ideas a chance. That said, too many sequels are lazy repeats of the formula established by the first film but with Happy Death Day 2U Landon, (also writer) is not content to repeat the former and instead smartly expands upon the first film, sometimes to great effect, sometimes not so much.
Picking up where the last one left off but focusing on Ryan (Phi Vu), Carter’s (Israel Broussard) hapless roommate barging in on Carter and Tree (Jessica Rothe) and kicked out one more time. Frustrated, he meets up with his science geek friends at the science lab to check on their project. It appears as if the project, involving quantum mechanics, has begun to act on its own. In barges the Dean, angry at the chaos their machine has caused and demanding it be shut down.
Left alone to deal with the loss of his science project, Ryan begins getting photos of he sitting on the couch. He gets up to find who it is that must have taken that photo and walking out into the hall, is sent another photo of he in the hall. This cell-phone game of cat and mouse ultimately leads to Ryan’s demise. A killer wearing the same mask as in the first film. For unknown reasons other than aesthetics, the killer hides behind a mask of the school mascot which is a baby’s face.
Why the school mascot is a single toothed infant is never explained. Not in the first and alas, not in the sequel. Narrative wise it is the schools mascot to facilitate numerous students wearing the mask on game day. A day which also happens to be Tree’s birthday, not to mention her dead mother’s birthday as well. Once murdered, Ryan awakes anew.
Repeating his opening sequence only to swerve into new narrative by refusing to leave when Carter demands it He announces he’s experiencing deja vu. This of course peaks the interest of Tree and Carter who listen as Ryan explains how he wound up being murdered. Tree tells him he will repeat this cycle and Ryan agrees to show Tree where it was he was killed. The three go back to the science lab to confront the killer only to discover the killer is Ryan!
Ryan from the future has gone back in time to kill Ryan of the past to break the time loop conundrum. The science-fiction twist is a clever and sometimes smart expansion of the story. It is also an explanation to why this was all happening to Tree in the first film. It’s not the details of how the quantum device works that are the problem, but things like naming the device Sisyphus.
Why any school would go with a baby face as a mascot is beyond me, but at least that didn’t undermine the narrative. Naming the quantum device – of which I’m still not sure what was its original purpose – Sisyphus, only winds up contradicting the geek squad’s surprise when they discover their invention has created a time loop. It’s obvious this wasn’t the intent of the device, but if not then why name it Sisyphus? King Sisyphus of Greek lore was a crafty king who tricked his way right into the wrath of the gods.
For his cunning he was doomed to an eternity of pushing a rock up a mountain only to watch it roll back down where he must eternally repeat the process. The irony here is that the geek squad’s surprise at their inadvertent time-loop machine isn’t necessary to the story. I suspect Landon wanted to to make it inadvertent to minimize their direct culpability in the chaos that ensues. Subsequently the device is suspiciously named after Sisyphus. It may seem a quibble but it is this kind of clever over smart that permeates the sequel.
It wants to be smart, but frustratingly settles for clever. Still, it is awfully clever and retains the first film’s lead in Jessica Rothe who remains terrific. The first film was described as a mash-up of Groundhog Day, Scream and Mean Girls. The sequel drops the Mean Girls similarities.
In this new timeline Tree discovers the killer from the first film (Lori played by Ruby Modine) is sweet and likable while not entirely innocent. Her crush on the Professor Tree was sleeping with in the first is now her relationship to struggle with but she is largely innocent. Even Rachel Matthews Danielle gets a makeover. While still a tad insufferable she is much more likable this time around as well as being Carter’s girlfriend in this timeline. Tree is not thrilled about this new development but it is undermined by her discovery that also in this timeline her mother is still alive.
Tree must now decide, through the help of Ryan and his two partners Samar (Siraj Sharma) and Dre (Sarah Yarkin), if she will return to her own timeline or if she’ll stay in this one and enjoy a mother who’s alive. The romance that developed between Tree and Carter in the first film still has its chemistry and Carter has a tendency to charm Tree and impress in ways that makes her decision all the more difficult. It would have been nice to see the film choose to be intelligent over clever but the film is still a lot of fun and Jessica Rothe is no doubt an actress to keep an eye on.