Directed by Paul Feig | Written by Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis, based on characters created by Darcey Bell | 120 min | ▲▲ | Prime 

There’s a theory in sequels that if the characters, beloved in the original, travel to some far-off destination to “spice up the story” in an exotic locale, it’s set to fail.

Maybe it’s in the title: Another Simple Favor, like Another 48 Hours and Another Stakeout, isn’t very good. Seeing Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively back together playing these characters might be enough to draw audiences — and make no mistake, their chemistry is the best part of this movie — but the script is exponentially more bonkers and less fun than the last one.

And the last one was plenty bonkers — any time a murdered twin is a plot point you know what you’re getting into. But at the same time it was also clever and unpredictable, with a fantastic sense of style. It established the character of an insecure, suburban mommy blogger, Stephanie (Kendrick), who gets drawn into the world of glamorous but cruel New York PR executive, Emily (Lively), who promptly disappears, leaving her son and husband in Stephanie’s care. It was a plan for claiming insurance money, but it was a good time — as I detailed in my review.

The sequel has Emily out of prison and asking Stephanie, who’s now best known as a crime author and internet sleuth, to be her maid of honour at her wedding in Capri.

Emily has landed a handsome Italian stallion, Dante (Michele Morrone), whose family is in the mob. Also on the scene is Stephanie’s assistant, Vicky (Alex Newell), Emily’s mother, Margaret (Elizabeth Perkins, taking over from Jean Smart, complete with a plastic surgery joke), aunt Linda (Allison Janney), and embittered ex-husband, Sean (Henry Golding), along with a few other familiar faces from the first movie.

Almost all of them have decamped to Capri for the wedding, but it’s not long before the bodies start to pile up — no prizes for guessing who will be first — along with the various plot issues. At one point an FBI agent shows up, and nobody thinks to ask her — aren’t you way out of your jurisdiction, ie. the United States?

Here’s the thing: this is a comedy playing off Hitchcockian and Christiean thrillers we all know and love, so a little absurdity is to be expected. But if you’re going to go for something as broad as, say, a Pink Panther movie, you’d better have some physical and/or visual humour to drive it home. Ridiculous twists set against a beautiful, cliffside masseria aren’t nearly enough. And something has been lost since the last one, the idea that the straight-laced suburban lady could be as cunning as the femme fatale. With no ordinary life to compare to, this one starts at 100 and has nowhere to go.

Even worse, Feig and his creative team also find ways to split up Kendrick and Lively for too much of the movie — when they’re lounging on a terrace discussing the outrageous elements of this story, those are the best bits. Just not enough of them to make this work.

Maybe a couple of martinis would help this go down easier. I’d need about a half dozen.