Think Like a Man Too (2014)

Think Like a Man Too arrives two years after its predecessor, transporting an ensemble of couples to Las Vegas for a destination wedding, and it conducts itself with the breezy confidence of a film that has no interest in arguing with anybody. Kevin Hart shrieks, a casino misadventure unfolds, and the ceremony nearly collapses under the weight of competing bachelor and bachelorette parties. The machinery is efficient. The ambition is a nap.

The cast is predominantly Black, which is a meaningful thing to see in a 2014 studio romantic comedy, though the film never frames it as a statement. Race is simply not a subject here. Nobody discusses it, nobody wrestles with it, and this Las Vegas contains no friction on that front. We are left to decide whether that is an oversight or a refusal, and the film's own content points to the latter: it wants to be a comedy about relationships, and it succeeds at being exactly that. The source material is Steve Harvey's relationship-advice book, not a wellspring of progressive thought, and the film honors its origins by steering every conflict toward marriage, babies, and reconciliation.

A woman gets a shot at a chief operating officer role, and a disapproving mother-in-law must be forgiven, and both threads settle on the side of domestic contentment. The Vegas excess is played for laughs, never for indictment, so the film holds no grudge against money. No environmental concern surfaces. No character pauses to instruct us on how to live. It is, at bottom, a sequel that knows its business: reassembling a likable cast, hitting its marks, and opening at number one. Audiences graded it generously. Critics did not. Both were watching the same movie.