Director: Patrick Hughes

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas.

Rating: ★½

Somehow we’ve received a sequel to one of the most under-whelming comedies of all time and despite having a star studied line up, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard fails to live up to the low bar that the first one set. It may be a lot shorter than the first film, but it doesn’t feel like it. Somehow it actually feels longer. I genuinely couldn’t believe how little time had passed when we left the cinema.

Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds), triple A bodyguard is back. This time he is on a sabbatical while his licence is under review due to the events in the first film. While on holiday in Italy Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek) finds him to get help in freeing her husband and infamous hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson. Soon enough they are working together to stop Aristotle (Antonio Banderas) from turning Europe into chaos.

The biggest problem with this film is that it isn’t that funny. There are so many attempted jokes that just land flat. So many punchlines that you can see coming a mile away and aren’t funny in the slightest. So many clichés from action/comedies that you can piece together so many bits before they even happen. It has one of the best cast lists possible for a comedy released in 2021 and somehow it barely has any laughs. And yet they agreed to star in this. A lot of the humour is vulgar, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but someone needs to tell the writers of this supposed comedy that being vulgar isn’t enough to be funny.

To be fair, there are a few moments that will make you laugh throughout, but not enough to warrant watching the entire film. Around the halfway point there is a sequence with Morgan Freeman that is genuinely funny. It gives hope that the second half will be better than the first, but almost as soon as it happens, we are back with rubbish jokes, poor action set pieces and the desire for the credits to roll as soon as possible.

Everyone works well with the script that they’ve been given. But that doesn’t make the film any less boring. The effects are pretty good, with explosions and some nice blood splatter at the beginning that looks very real. The action isn’t that entertaining though. It’s not thrilling and it’s not very funny. The scenery looks great.  Europe looks beautiful throughout and if anything I want to visit Italy even more than I did before.

It barely works as a comedy, and it certainly doesn’t work as an action film. This is a poor film and should have been so much better. There are so many better things that you could do with your time than watch this. With a cast as great as this it should be good, and yet it just isn’t.