'Horrible Bosses 2': The guys create a start-up

THE THREE dumped-on employees from "Horrible Bosses" become management in the sequel, but find that life gets no easier.

This time, the leads (Charlie Day, Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis) start their own business, borrow from a pair of not-so-angelic "angel" investors (Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz) and end up trying to raise cash via a hare-brained kidnapping scheme.

This allows the cast to have a go at spoofing the conventions of the caper movie - we get an imagined account of the plan unfolding perfectly, then the blundering reality of the three stooges doing everything wrong.

The good jokes are very widely spaced, but Day, Bateman and Sudeikis have worked out a viable three-way chemistry, with Bateman playing straight man to Day's dumb guy and Sudeikis' ungoverned id.

Kevin Spacey has a cameo; Jamie Foxx returns as, um, Mr. Jones, again subverting the racial stereotypes held by the three white leads. And there's a return visit from Jennifer Aniston, a great sport again as a nymphomaniac.

Somehow she manages to walk out of this sloppy frat party with her dignity intact, playing the apparent fulfillment of male fantasy who turns out to be much more than any man can handle.

It's kind of a metaphor for her remarkable, durable career - making two or three comedies a year in an industry dominated by bro-centered juvenilia. The roles may be interchangeable, but she's made herself indispensable, accumulated a lifetime box office of $1.4 billion, invested in the beauty products company Living Proof that came out of MIT and serves as its spokeswoman.

Don't know what happened to Ross, but Rachel's kicking ass.