Meandering slasher sequel feels mundane

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Radiating a fetching charisma and sassy demeanor, Jessica Rothe was the best reason to watch 2017’s modest hit “Happy Death Day,” a kooky, if derivative Blumhouse slasher — think “Scream” meets “Groundhog Day”/“Edge of Tomorrow.” (Un)fortunately, Rothe is the only reason to watch “Happy Death Day 2U,” a meandering sequel that wants to have its cupcake and eat it, too.

When we last left Rothe’s Tree Gelbman, she and accidental new boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard) had finally foiled Tree’s masked killer, thus closing a mysterious birthday time loop that reset every time Tree died. “Happy Death Day 2U” picks up immediately where the original left off, with Carter’s ever-intrusive college roommate Ryan (Phi Vu) again bursting into their dorm room. However, now Ryan finds himself trapped in the same fatal time loop as Tree, both the apparent consequence of a quantum physics gizmo that Ryan and his science buddies have been constructing in the school’s lab.

Ryan’s impulsive solution to this quandary catapults Tree back into her erstwhile Groundhog Day, except this time in an alternate dimension filled with the same cast of characters, but with several essential alterations. Tree is no longer carrying on with her married biology instructor, Carter is dating Tree’s catty sorority sister Danielle (Rachel Matthews), and, most notably, Tree’s deceased mother is very much alive. As Ryan and friends battle both hard math and the school’s dean in order to reset their flux capacitor (yes, someone makes an obvious “Back to the Future” reference), Tree must decide whether to remain in this new timeline or return to her home dimension.

Writer-director Christopher Landon pads the plot with enough forced detours to reach a baseline 100-minute running time. In the process, he takes the straightforward charm of “Happy Death Day” and bloats it with excessive exposition. The pseudoscience blather quickly grows wearisome, while the narrative is little more than an exercise in revisiting scenes from the first film and discovering the differences (viewing the original movie is a necessary prerequisite). And yes, there’s still a baby-masked murderer on the loose, although this time it’s a superfluous and rather nonsensical subplot, turning the already PG-13 gore even less frightful.

Landon tries to marry the spunk of the first film with an increasingly twisty storyline, but the former feels redundant while the latter is mundane and inconsequential. A closing credits sequence teases a third “Happy Death Day,” but the lesson of this sequel is that some things are better off dead.

Happy Death Day 2U

Grade: C+

Director: Christopher Landon

Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Ruby Modine, and Rachel Matthews

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Happy Death Day, Review