Review: Horrible Bosses 2

City Paper grade: D

Surely there have been films that called for a sequel less than Horrible Bosses, but after sitting through the second round of this slapdash revenge fantasy, it's hard to call any immediately to mind. However you felt about the first installment, its "revenge of the wage slaves" plot had a recession-era timeliness, its leads quickly established a manic chemistry, and it benefited from game supporting turns from an unlikely cast — Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx. All but Farrell return to do more of the same, which is all anyone shoots for this time out. Writer-director Sean Anders (whose credits include Sex Drive and the Adam Sandler low-among-lows That's My Boy, if you need further red flags) follows the Hangover sequels formula of repeating the same jokes with minor, winking tweaks. Foxx fares best as the inscrutable thug Motherfucker Jones, and Spacey all-too-briefly lends the film a little bite, while Aniston is simply left to toss out Urban Dictionary euphemisms, the shock value of which was depleted by the end of the last movie. An overeager Chris Pine and an utterly wasted Christoph Waltz are added to the mix. Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day have been let off the leash to the point where their incessant, mostly improvised yammering (especially Day's dog-whistle screech) become little more than background noise for Jason Bateman's variations on eye-rolling irritation.