Somebody alert Interpol! Cop Nick Spitz (Adam Sandler) and his hairdresser wife Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) are back for another globe-trotting adventure in Murder Mystery 2, the rollicking sequel to Netflix’s 2019 caper comedy premiering March 31. In that hit, the pair’s European dream vacay was interrupted when they were suspected of killing an elderly billionaire.
They managed to solve that quirky case, but back home, the Spitzes’ vision of being full-time investigators isn’t panning out. So, they jump at the chance to get away from it all for the glamorous wedding of their friend the Maharajah (Adeel Akhtar). There’s a murder, then a kidnapping, then hijinks galore in Paris.
The film’s writer, James Vanderbilt, loves the whodunit genre but wanted to modernize it, a common thread in the crop of successful new murder mysteries.
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“The special sauce is dropping these crafty, funny Americans into the middle of what would otherwise be an Agatha Christie situation,” he says. “That felt updated — characters who comment on how crazy these worlds are but get swept up into the adventure.”
And there’s plenty of that. One big win for the production: For a scene shot at the Eiffel Tower, they were able to hoist a character up a portion of the landmark’s center by a cable, a stunt never allowed there before.
Director Jeremy Garelick describes a scene where Audrey and Nick are duct-taped together back-to-back.
To escape, they must roll away. The actors did the takes, with Sandler repeatedly asking Aniston if she was squished and her reassuring him she was fine. All the risk helps the characters reconnect.
“You have a couple at a point when they’re a little bored, a little troubled,” Garelick says. “You’re watching their relationship be saved as they’re solving a kidnapping.”
The ending? Well, let’s just say it suggests the Spitzes shouldn’t let their passports expire.
Murder Mystery 2, Original Film Premiere, Friday, March 31, Netflix