PaulFeig – Credits Rolling

Taking place five years after the events of the first film, Another Simple Favor reunites Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) and Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) for a new mystery. When Emily asks Stephanie to be her maid of honor, Stephanie reluctantly agrees. She’s whisked away to Capri for the celebrations, but when one of the guests is murdered, Stephanie starts to worry that she won’t make it home in one piece.

I was a big fan of the first film. It was quippy, smart and sexy and the cast were phenomenal. This may be the sequel that nobody asked for (I feel like everything was wrapped up well before), but I still found myself looking forward to revisiting this world.

Kendrick and Lively reprise their roles effortlessly. It was like no time had passed at all. They have such a playful and organic chemistry that I could literally watch them for hours. The hijinks that ensued this time around were even more insane and yet it somehow still worked. Another returning face was Henry Goulding’s Sean, Emily’s ex husband and Stephanie’s former paramour. Clearly struggling with what happened in the past, he’s turned to drink. While you can’t help but feel bad for him, he also has some of the best lines in the whole film. There are some new players this time around: Allison Janey is Emily’s offbeat aunt Linda, Alex Newell is Stephanie’s bubbly assistant Vicky and Michele Morrone is Emily’s new beau the elusive Dante Versano. They each fit in perfectly.

Some may say that there’s too much going on this time around. There’s more twists, more turns and not all of them make sense, but that’s okay. As long as you allow yourself to lean into it, I think it is much more enjoyable. There’s a lot of really fun callbacks to the original as well which I appreciated. I also need to give a shoutout to the outfits that were worn by the cast. Absolutely beautiful.

If it wasn’t for Paul Feig, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered with Another Simple Favor. At least having him at the helm meant that we’d be in safe hands. Set against the beautiful backdrop of Capri with brilliant lead performances by our two leading ladies and the over the top story it seemed like it could all fall apart. Luckily that was far from being the case.

Rating: ♥️♥️♥️.5

After another Great Depression, The Grand Lottery is introduced to help boost the economy again. The only catch is that if you kill the winner before sundown, you can legally claim their prize. Katie (Awkwafina) is new to LA when she unknowingly becomes the newest lottery winner. She ends up joining forces with an amateur jackpot protector named Noel (Jon Cena) who vows to help Katie make it to the end of the day.

There was so much wrong with this film, I don’t even know where to start. The one positive I can think of is the cast. Awkwafina and Cena develop an enjoyable friendship that I did like watching. Simu Liu, who portrays Louis Lewis, another protector and rival of Cena’s Noel, is another great addition and it was fun having him and Awkwafina reunited after Shang Chi. I mustn’t forget about Sean William Scott who starred in a feature film again after so long which was a welcome treat. While the script lets them down, it’s easy to tell that they are doing what they can with the material they were given.

Unfortunately it’s pretty much all downhill after that. While the storyline held promise, despite the fact that it’s not something we haven’t seen before, it wasn’t executed well at all. I would appreciated more background as to why this lottery made people so crazy that they wanted to kill the winner to claim the prize for themselves. The action sequences were almost cartoonish after a while and became less and less exciting to watch.

I also didn’t think the film was funny. A couple of the jokes made me chuckle, but most of them fell flat. Very rarely am I a fan of slapstick comedy so I should have realized I would find problems here. It just didn’t work and after a while it all just started to feel like more of the same.

Overall, Jackpot! was a huge waste of time. Aside from the cast who were trying their best, there really were no redeeming qualities. I’m surprised that Paul Feig directed this as I usually like this work. With its runtime coming in at almost two hours, I couldn’t wait until it was over.

Rating: ♥️