Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.It’s a reliable constant in film history: good actors have always been willing to board substandard projects if they involve spending time in a beautiful location. Not to disparage the cast of Another Simple Favour — but Capri is a nice break, even when photographed as mundanely as it is here.This is Paul Feig’s sequel to his sweet-natured but enjoyably barbed 2018 comedy thriller A Simple Favour, in which Anna Kendrick’s naive, indefatigably chipper suburbanite tangled with a glamorous, extremely dangerous new friend, played by Blake Lively. That ingeniously tangled film worked so well because it was set in humdrum suburbia, yet offered us and its heroine a picture window on a dazzling world of excess, perversity and crime.Here the setting is different — sun, sudden death and a lick of White Lotus luxury. Now operating as an intrepid true crime vlogger, Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) reluctantly agrees to be maid of honour at the wedding of slinkily amoral Emily (Lively) — newly released from prison, and about to marry a very well-connected Italian. No sooner has Stephanie twigged that she has arrived at a mob wedding than the bodies start dropping, the twists twisting.One of the writers is Jessica Sharzer, from the original, but here the piquancy is drastically watered down into an insipid bouillon of switcheroos, sour one-liners and grim Italian stereotypes, which in any case may not entirely make sense if you haven’t seen the first film. Some actors return, notably Henry Golding, who gives about the most spirited value here, while the film unforgivably manages to waste both Allison Janney and Elizabeth Perkins. Kendrick and Lively put on an honourable show, but can’t disguise a certain fatigue at carrying a narrative that barely rises above a creaky Scooby-Doo level.★★☆☆☆On Amazon Prime Video now
