This was dreadful and painful to watch. Unlike most people, I did enjoy the first one as an entertaining turn-your-brain-off one time watch, as it did have a good story, a cohesive story and one that had some great comedy and laughs that followed. So I figured I'd give this one a shot. Huge mistake. This mess was incoherent, convoluted and pointless nonsense that dragged out endlessly with ridiculous infantile writing. The entire sub-plot with the crazy Phoenix chick was cringeworthy and annoyingly bad. Actually, comparing the writing to five year olds is an insult to the five year olds, because they could write something better than this mess. It's a generous 3/10 for the cast that were clearly the only ones that had fun making this to punish the rest of us.

So the first movie was a decent comedy. Not one that sit at the highest spot in my favorite comedies ever but i had fun with it, it had some heart and the "buddy games" made a central point of it.

In this movie, the premise is for some reason they end up in a spring break event where the buddy games started and have to compete once again. But no... its not. This is basically the intro of the movie. The "buddy games" are insignificant to the movie plot. Completely !

The first act was kinda fun, having to deal with the loss of one of their own and it serve a purpose to have them end up were they do end up and the whole reason why they were banned from ever going back. But then the movie switch to some .. i dunno... drug gone wrong trip?

Look, i despise wokeness, i really dislike the extreme left and everything that resort around woke and yes normally i would had find funny them poking fun at how little (if not at all) extreme woke stuff make sense. Even did a little at first.

But in the context of the movie i was just waiting for the plot to continue... for stuff to happen.

In the first movie, Olivia Munn character plays a huge part in the whole thing. Here she is nowhere to be found. Its implied trough one quick line (blink and you will miss it) that Josh Duhamel character is now single? But nothing else !! AT ALL.

The buddy games part of this movie happen super early and have no meaning for the rest of the movie. I said it earlier but i think its worth saying again. Its like Hangover 3 where there is no actual hangover and they taught it would be a good idea. Exept here its actually some weird Hangover related movie and not a Buddy games movie.

The movie dig so deep into non sense stuff that i kept face palming, yes actual face palming... in real life. And im a guy who enjoyed juvenile comedies like those American Pie clones a lot toward the years. My standards are not high.

The main plot, for the little there is, is basically centered around this dead character wich yes was in the first movie, but quite frankly i don't even remember that well. I mean the movie came out in 2019, i enjoyed it, but thats it. It focussed on Olivia Munn and Josh Duhamel and the buddy games were the plot twist putting sticks in their wheels if you get what i mean. They were the main characters.

Going for a buddy party trip movie instead of putting focuss on a relationship is fine, but 90% of the movie felt like weird situations happening one after the other and not making much sense and then suddenly movie just decide that its time to wrap things up and a somwhat unsatisfying wrap up happen. At this point you are so annoyed by everything else you don't care, and story wise you feel no growth whatsoever or progression in any of the characters.

I saw someone mention Grown Up 1 and 2. I understand Adam Sandler comedy is not for everyone and i respect that, but personally i had lots of fun with these 2 and the sequel is a worthy successor of the first movie even if it missed Rob Schneider. There is ways to work around an actor not coming back (for whatever reason) but here it truly felt like some of these guys had some contact obligations or wanted to do a favor to Josh Duhamel and were like "ok fine we will do it" and then some random screenwriter came out with a terrible script to have a movie.

I will finish on saying that i watched this movie in the best of circonstances. Made it one of my few "beer movies" these days , where i drink a few and just want to have a funny good time without thinking too hard. And despise this, it was ridiculous in the wrong way, it made no sense, i kept face palming like wtf am i watching. And ill repeat, the first 20 minutes were enjoyable.

Im being generous giving a 4 there. Because its not badly shot, or badly acted, or have poor special effects. Everything is competent. Its just an unfunny, go nowhere, poor scripte. And ill say it again. No the woke jokes didn't offend me, i love poking fun at wokeness. Its just it has to make sense and be funny !! I didn't care for these woke characters at all in the movie. Either as protagonist or antagonist...

If I had to describe that film, I would tell people to imagine you have a big ball of hair. Now roll it in poop. Then set fire to it. Breathe it in. Taste the smoke. Savour it... that's Buddy Games 2.

It is some of the poorest/laziest writing of a script, that gets over worked & stretched thin into an abomination. Dax Shepard took the wise choice, by not featuring. James Roday Rodriguez, Nick Swardson, and Jensen Ackles accepted roles, but you could remove them from the film and the plot of the film wouldn't suffer.

It stopped being about the characters, and more about a succession of ever increasingly ridiculous situations, to the point where it stopped being mediocre & became unenjoyable... and that was about halfway into the film.

My recommendation is that you watch Grown Ups 1& 2 instead, and that the production company hide all copies of the DVD in the same landfill as 'ET the Extraterrestrial' for the Atari 2600.