The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

4/10 

In this sequel to the Hitman's Bodyguard, bodyguard Michael Bryce (played by Ryan Reynolds) is roped into saving kidnapped hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) by his foul-mouthed, nutty wife Sonia (Salma Hayek). 

This makes the mistake that some comedy sequels do by making the film less grounded and more broad in its humor, so much that the movie feels detached from the last film. The writers' stance appears to be: an hour and thirty-nine minutes of bad stuff happening to Bryce = comedy. It's too bad. Reynolds starts off funny, but they write so many jokes for him that his character gets real old, real fast. Plus, the movie makes the frustrating choice of throwing out any character journey he had in the last film and just put him back where he started from but in an even worse situation.  Plus, his romantic interest is just dropped without a mention.  

The plot feels inconsequential and half-baked, because the writers just care about having the characters get into shenanigans, but said shenanigans aren't strong enough.

Frank Grillo plays an Interpol agent who's whole shtick is that he's an angry Boston guy. He's soooooo badly written. The last movie had Gary Oldman as the villain in a role so lackluster that it seemed they hired such a fine actor for a role anyone could've played. Here Antonio Banderas plays a rich Greek guy with plans to destabilize Europe. I feel that at least here the actor was in a role that was written for him. However, he appears so rarely and does so little that you don't really feel anything for him.   

Also, this has some of the most obvious stunt double moments I've ever seen, and they have a moment where Hayek uses a terrible English accent.

On the plus side, there are some funny moments, including a fun montage with Bryce and Sonia. I was worried that since they boosted Hayek's role that she could become overexposed. However, I thought she fared the best of the three leads. She brings such energy to the character's instability.

I do not recommend this. The movie started promisingly, but I got more bored and frustrated with the it's decisions as it went on, and I was eventually hoping for it to end soon.