Think Like A Man Too

Only two years since the first installment of the adaptation of self-help book ‘Act Like A Woman, Think Like A Man’, and apparently that movie didn’t dole out enough advice, so just about everyone is back for seconds. With the group of friends descending on Las Vegas for both the bachelor and bachelorette party on the same night, and then the wedding the very next day, it’s business as usual; people breaking up, making up, old past’s re-visited, new events potentially scuppering happy futures, and the battle of the sexes played out amongst a number of people who you feel really shouldn’t be friends in the first place.

The entire thing is narrated in that fast-forward nasal sound created by Kevin Hart’s mouth, an actor who manages to be simultaneously life-alteringly annoying, and yet still the best thing in the movie. It’s clear that while the script itself isn’t all that funny, he’s been allowed to ad-lib to his heart’s content, and while his own jokes aren’t substantially funnier, they are better than anyone else has to work with. All the cast from the original have returned – Michael Ealy, Gabrielle Union, Romany Malco, Regina Hall, Jerry Ferrara, Taraji P. Henson – but are just as universally forgettable as each other, all happy to play second fiddle to Hart’s mini comedic tornado.

Back behind the camera is director Tim Story – who in the interim of thinking like a man, teamed up with Kevin Hart again for the improbably popular Ride Along – and he brings his usual lack of style to proceedings, presenting this movie like it’s a feature length episode of a sit-com that stopped being funny years ago.

As his set of characters tick off the Vegas clichés – gambling montage, pool-side lady ogling, strip clubs, somebody actually says “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” – they also amount to little more than gender clichés: men are thoughtless, selfish sex addicts, and women are tightly wound nag machines. Good one Think Like A Man Too, now tell us the one about airplane food.