Friday, February 15, 2019

'Happy Death Day 2U' Makes A Birthday Wish Come True


In an alternate universe, that shirt says "FML"

Last year's Happy Death Day was a charming surprise, a horror comedy that ultimately turned into a romantic comedy, cleverly using horror movie tropes in a Groundhog Day-inspired loop of murder, survival, and blossoming love. So how could a film that centers on repetition not spawn a sequel, that genre of film that almost always relies on repeating those things that made the first film a hit?

And indeed, Happy Death Day 2U, does just that, much to the absolute exasperation of heroine Tree (Jessica Rothe) who, at the end of the first film, thought she had finally survived her never-ending birthday/death day. 2U begins where that film ended, with Tree and her new boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard) celebrating a day that is finally not the 18th only to find Carter's roommate Ryan (Phi Vu), seems to be experiencing the same time-looping Tree just survived.

Turns out Ryan has been working on a science thesis that centers on a quantum reactor nicknamed Sissy. It was this reactor that set off Tree's original time loop, and when Ryan and his fellow science nerds attempt to correct his own looping by firing up the reactor again, it sends Tree back into her loop, but this time, in an alternative universe. So now while Tree is still fated to be killed at the end of each of her never ending days, the killer appears to be someone different. Also different? Her relationship with Carter, and the fate of another very important person in her life.

Just as characters in the first film openly compared what they were going through to the film Groundhog Day, this time they see their dilemma as more akin to Back to the Future II. Happy Death Day 2U also pays as much tribute to John Hughes as the original did, but this time it's Weird Science, not Sixteen Candles that you'll be nostalgic for.

And just like Weird Science, it's best not to overthink the science behind that reactor, and its multiple "algorithms", which require multiple tries, and thus require Tree to die multiple times so she can reset the day and they can try over. (These multiple deaths result in a peppy suicide montage that features Tree gleefully jumping out of a plane without a parachute, drinking poison, and leaping into a wood chipper, all painful forms of death I'm not sure I'd opt for, even if I knew I was going to wake up alive.) And as nonsensical as the scientific explanation for the time loops and multiverses may be, interjecting science fiction into the plot is a great way to keep the sequel feeling fresh.

Also, of all the movies 2U brings to mind, I think the closest match this time may be 2015's The Final Girls, another slasher comedy that was able to use the tropes of the genre to generate both thrills and genuine, tear-inducing drama. (Go stream it now!)

I was worried at the beginning of Happy Death Day 2U that Jessica Rothe was going to take a backseat to a new character and his time-loop story, because it was Rothe's comedic timing, rage, and her relationship with Broussard's Carter that were probably the best things about the first film. Thankfully, the beginning is a bit of a MacGuffin, and 2U is very much Rothe's movie. As long as she returns, I'll gladly repeat the experience for the Happy Death Day 3(D?) that is promised by film's end.


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