'Horrible Bosses 2': Sputtering bickering businessmen

The Horrible Bosses comedy franchise is like a recipe full of ingredients that you'd think would go well together. But the taste ends up being off anyway.

At least the title fits better in this sequel because this time, hapless salarymen Nick, Kurt, and Dale (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day) are working for themselves. Turns out they're even more desperately inept as businessmen than they are as criminals.

Horrible Bosses 2 gets off to a fast and funny start. That's a trademark of the scripts from the hot comedy writing team of Sean Anders and John Morris (Dumb and Dumber To, We're the Millers). They show impressive power going zero to 60, but then they tend to take their feet off the gas.

Most of the humor in this film arises from the ludicrous squabbles among Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day, who can springboard from logic to lunacy in a single exchange. Anders and Morris fall so in love with this bickering rhythm that even if there is just one character on screen, they'll have him start arguing with himself.

The problem is that both Bateman and Sudeikis have such insular comedy styles that all the leads appear to be acting in different films. And only the movie with Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) is worth watching. The other guys are just doing improv-class schtick.

Horrible Bosses 2 strains too hard to bring back the supporting cast from the first go-round: Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, and Jennifer Aniston (in a demeaningly raunchy role). And the primary new addition, Chris Pine (Star Trek Into Darkness), is discomfitingly convincing as a sociopath. As for Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained), his appearance as a corporate shark is so extraneous, it seems entirely possible that he snuck onto the set. Of course, I could say that about almost every film Waltz has been in.

Everyone in the cast is just punching the clock through the preposterous and empty second half of the film. And that makes Horrible Bosses 2 feel considerably longer than its bloated running time.

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