I know some people are going to dismiss Murder Mystery right away because it’s an Adam Sandler movie, so let’s just get that right out of the way. If you’re someone that just hates Adam Sandler on principal, then don’t watch this. It’s not a typical Sandler movie, sure, but some people are elitist enough about his movies that they think that anything he does is trash. This just isn’t the case, but if that’s going to be enough of a barrier to entry for you, then don’t bother to continue reading this.

With that out of the way, I liked Murder Mystery. I thought that it had a pretty fun concept. Basically, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston played Nick and Audrey, a married couple who are coming up on their 15th anniversary. Audrey complains that she’s never gotten the honeymoon Nick promised her 15 years ago, and so the two head off to Europe together. On the plane ride there, Audrey meets a very wealthy man who invites her and Nick onto his yacht. They end up joining him, and meet an interesting cast of characters. However, the billionaire owner of the yacht ends up getting murdered on it, and so the prime suspects become the new guests that are there. Nick and Audrey work to clear their names and find the real killer, where everyone is a suspect.

If the title isn’t obvious, the movie is a comedy in the “murder mystery” genre, and so it has some fun with that concept. Nick is a cop, while Audrey just enjoys murder mystery novels, so they have fun exploring the tropes of the genre through this. The movie’s style reminded me a lot of a movie like Game Night, so if you’ve seen that, this is something similar.

I honestly don’t have a ton to say about this movie outside of the fact that I liked it. Is it high art or anything? No, but that’s not what I watch an Adam Sandler movie for anyway. I watch movies like this for some fun, mindless entertainment that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s what I got here. The movie has a really fun cast of characters, and so it’s fun to see all of their interactions as they suspect each other. I will say that the movie leans way more into the mystery aspect than it does the comedy aspect, so take that however you want. Maybe you won’t like this if you only want laughs from the movie, but I enjoyed it. I’m not saying this is “movie of the year” material or anything, but I think that it’s one of the better movies that Netflix has put out in recent memory. Give it a shot if you have nothing better to do.

3.5/5