Filthy lightning doesn’t strike twice for Aniston

Even as a child, I knew the world contained a vast array of swear words, each with its own subtle nuance.

From Beetle Bailey alone, I learned $@%!, the harsher &^%$ and the multifaceted, underappreciated @*>~}#.

So “Horrible Bosses 2’s” near constant barrage of F-bombs — you just know it would have been called “Horrible (Expletive)ing Bosses” if the studio could have gotten away with it — comes across more lazy than edgy.

Then again, much of the sequel feels that way.

After the events of the 2011 original, failed murderers Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) have sworn off bosses for good, thanks to their new invention: a combination water, soap and shampoo dispenser called The Shower Buddy.

Not surprisingly, their appearance designed to solicit investors on a morning talk show goes terribly wrong. A contrived problem with their demonstration makes it look as though they’re pantomiming a series of crude sex acts. And having never before said it aloud, they didn’t realize their website, NickKurtDale.com, sounds like it belongs to a Klan-friendly housing development.

That they’re contacted soon after such a disaster by Rex Hanson (Chris Pine), a representative of a popular catalog company, should have set off alarm bells. But while certainly tools, Nick, Kurt and Dale are far from the sharpest ones in any shed.

Once Rex’s multimillionaire father, Bert (Christoph Waltz), promises to buy their first 100,000 units, the guys sink all their money into a new factory. So when Bert eventually backs out of the deal, the trio hatches a desperate plan to save themselves as well as all the sexy unqualified models Kurt hired to fill their orders.

Eventually, they settle on kidnapping — or, as Kurt suggests, “kidnaping” — Rex, who turns the tables on them and takes over his own ransom plot with plans to keep most of the money for himself.

“Horrible Bosses” worked, such as it did, because of its originality. As the titular characters, Colin Farrell subjected himself to a paunch and a bad comb-over; Jennifer Aniston showed a never-before-glimpsed side of herself as a filthy sexual predator; and Kevin Spacey, well, he played an amalgamation of pretty much every Kevin Spacey character ever. But the first two performances were genuinely outside the box.

This time around, Pine hurls himself into his psychotic character with such gusto, it nearly replicates the original formula — up until his antics start feeling a bit forced.

But that’s pretty much where the newness begins and ends.

The gang seeks advice from Nick’s imprisoned boss (Spacey) and once again consults with Mother(expletive) Jones (Jamie Foxx) who repeats his awful negotiating skills — twice, in case you miss it the first time.

Kurt’s sexual appetite ruins another plan. The old toothbrush-in-the-butt gag rears its ugly head. There’s even a return appearance from The Heavy’s song “How You Like Me Now?”

The most appalling bit of recycling, though, involves Aniston’s dirty dentist Julia, who’s shoehorned into the mix because, hey, people loved her the first time out. Here, Nick stumbles into her sex-addiction support group, and she becomes more and more aroused — graphically and horrifyingly — by his invented childhood sexual encounter with another 14-year-old boy at wrestling camp.

You’ll need your own Shower Buddy just to feel clean again after that one.

The original’s writers and director bailed on the sequel, leaving it in the hands of the writing team of John Morris and Sean Anders (“Dumb and Dumber To,” “We’re the Millers”), the latter of whom also directs.

The result isn’t a complete disaster. There are sporadic laughs and a few chuckles. And a car chase feels particularly clever, if somehow mismanaged.

But the flaws — and there are many — have nothing to do with “Horrible Bosses 2’s” lead trio.

The responsible weariness of Bateman, the manic hyperactivity of Day and the gleam-in-his-eye smarminess of The Second City Las Vegas alum Sudeikis blend well. You just get the feeling that, left to their own devices, they could have riffed out a better movie than this.

But since the movie asks, once again, “How You Like Me Now?” Significantly less than the first time around.

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.