HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U (2019) * ½

There’s a scene about halfway through Happy Death Day 2U where the heroine Tree (Jessica Rothe) says, “I am so done with this shit.”  After watching this back to back with the original, I was starting to feel the same way. 

It begins with a minor character from Happy Death Day finding himself experiencing the same time loop that Tree was stuck inside.  After a lot of longwinded exposition and boring scenes of characters spouting unending scientific gobbledygook about alternate dimensions and multiverses, Tree winds up stuck in a parallel universe that almost (but not quite) resembles her own.  Unfortunately, that means she is still stuck in a perpetual loop where gets killed on a daily basis.  It’s then up to her boyfriend and his team of science nerds to send Tree back to her own time before the psycho in the baby mask finishes her for good.    

The first thing you notice about Happy Death Day 2U is that Rothe looks considerably older than she did in the first movie.  I don’t know if this was done on purpose.  I guess it makes sense since she’s literally been through Hell dozens of times.  My guess is that you can only make a thirtysomething actress look like a college student for so long.

Like its predecessor, Happy Death Day 2U rips off Groundhog Day once again.  This time, it’s even more blatant, especially in the scene where Tree kills herself over and over again.  (Right down to the bathtub suicide.)  At least these moments have some blood (like the woodchipper scene), unlike the bone-dry original.  The movie doesn’t stop at ripping off Groundhog Day.  It also borrows from Halloween 2, lifts the killer reveal from Scream, and the score blatantly steals from Back to the Future. 

Overall, Happy Death Day 2U is more chaotic and less cohesive than the first movie.  Clocking in at a whopping 100 minutes, it’s also overlong to boot.  Still, I’d say it’s slightly better than the original, if only because the scenes of Tree reconnecting with her dead mother hit an emotional chord that was sorely missing the first time around.  It doesn’t completely redeem the character of Tree (who’s just as annoying as she was in Part 1), but it does show that Rothe has a bit more range than you might have originally thought.

AKA:  Happy Birthdead 2 You.