"Bateman, Sudeikis and Day are a fine comic threesome"

Horrible Bosses 2 is a film that doesn't particularly need to exist, but as the saying goes 'money talks' and when Horrible Bosses scored big at the box office it was clear a sequel was in the works and at no point did anyone think to ask, is this a good idea?

In much the same way films like Anchorman 2 and The Hangover 2 fell flat because they tried to emulate something successful that had come before, Horrible Bosses 2 suffers a similar fate.  Then again when you're dealing with a film like Horrible Bosses, theres only so much room for manoeuvre and as such the sequel is more or a less a rehash of the original containing a similar plot line with the same amount of offensive jokes at the expense of women, asians, gays and blacks.

After appearing on a morning news show with their new invention, the Shower Buddy, Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) are approached by Boulder Streams, a huge mail order catalogue company. Chris Pine, playing the charming and  unscrupulous Rex offers the trio a deal to hand over the Shower Buddy to the company in exchange for a generous sum of money. Realising they could be sitting on potential goldmine, Nick talks the others out of the deal and convinces them to go it alone. With an endorsement from Rex's father Bert, (Chistoph Waltz) along with a placed order of 100,000 units, the team take out a bank loan and set up their business.

However once the order is complete, Bert back tracks on his offer with the purpose of letting their company go into foreclosure, and buying up the Shower Buddy for pennies once they go broke. With no money and no options, Nick, Kurt and Dale once again come up with an outlandish and hugely illegal plan to not only get their money back but also take down Bert in the process: Kidnapping Rex.

From here on out the film falls into the same farcical nature of the original, as these three bumbling idiots go about attempting to pull off an audacious kidnapping, utilising once more the help of the only real criminal they actually know, 'Mutherfucka' Jones (Jamie Foxx).

For all the kinks in the plot, the one redeeming factor of Horrible Bosses 2 is the onscreen chemistry between its three stars. Bateman, Sudeikis and Day are a fine comic threesome who, when the plot fails to ignite, are at least able to recuperate some of the big laughs with their motor mouthed back and forth dialogue scenes. One particular stand out scene see's them attempting to kidnap Rex by knocking him out with dental laughing gas. However, while they wait in the closet the gas starts leaking and they soon become hysterical wrecks and eventually pass out. Another running gag where Kurt constantly mistakes Dale's female triplets for boys has an Arrested Development air of humour about it but sadly not even the constant banter is enough to salvage the film as a whole.

With reappearances from the likes of Jennifer Aniston as sex obsessed Julia, and Kevin Spacey as Nicks old boss, now incarcerated, it all just feels a bit too same-y. Christoph Waltz makes a nice addition to the casting but is completely under used and rarely gets much of a chance to shine. When Horrible Bosses 2 works, it's down to the on screen dialectics between its three main characters, the kind of conversations you could imagine having with your mates if you were in that kind of situation, only your mates were as funny as these comedy big hitters.

Occasionally too much can be a bad thing and you get the impression the director is relying a bit too heavily on the comedy pedigree of its cast rather than pushing on with any sense of narrative. Hopefully this won't be a Hangover situation because a third movie could be a very bad idea based on what's on offer here.