Lifetime Review: 'Keeping Up With the Joneses: The Wrong Letter'

The Joneses have been through the wringer lately. After one attempt on her life killed her maid and another forced her to kill her late husband's only son Carlos, Robin Jones (Vivica A. Fox) just wants to move past the tragedy and get back to business. Her stepdaughters all hope for the same thing, but with the police taking so long to investigate what happened, Pam (Arie Thompson) fears they might stumble across one of their dirty secrets in the process.

But the authorities are the least of the Joneses' worries. With Webb Devereaux (Ted McGinley) still intent on buying Jones Enterprise, the Jones sisters worry that Robin might turn on them to sell Webb the company--with or without their consent. There's also the matter of Carrie's mysterious new boyfriend Lance (Adonis Williams) and Carlos' vengeful sister Maria (Stacey Patino). With so many enemies out to take down the Joneses, can this powerhouse family survive the fallout?

Like the Joneses do during their business meetings, I'll cut right to the chase: The Wrong Letter is a notable decrease in snarky drama when compared to The Wrong Family. This is likely on account of the fact that the Joneses' most dangerous enemy (Carlos) is dead, leaving the comparatively less menacing Webb Devereaux to take over as their main threat. And even then, Webb spends most of the movie lurking in the background, setting up what appear to be the pieces of a larger scheme against the Jones family. There's even a stark lack of saucy Kandi Burruss narration. While it doesn't become a boring watch and it all seems to be setting the stage for a grand finale with The Wrong Blackmail, be prepared to not be as engaged with the action as you might've been with the first installment of this series.

The Wrong Letter gets off to--pun intended--the wrong foot with the opening scene of the Jones family talking to the police. While most of their behavior is in character, Robin's snippiness with Detective Murphy (played by Clayton Norcross) is completely incongruous with her desire to maintain good relations with the police department. Plus, Fox takes the opportunity to make another "Wrong Family" title drop. While it's not as overwrought as the one from the actual Wrong Family movie, it's still pretty silly. Thankfully, Robin is back to her level-headed self after this rough beginning, with Vivica A. Fox giving the same sassily likable performance she gave in The Wrong Family. In fact, all of the main cast retain their strong performances. Highlights of the bunch include Arie Thompson, Ciarra Carter, and Jasmine Aivaliotis. Thompson throws herself into Pam's mild freak-outs as she and her family face new problems, Carter shines as the film allows the usually softer-spoken Carrie the chance to release her inner lioness, and Aivaliotis makes up for ending The Wrong Family with shaky delivery by giving a consistently solid performance as Tara is developed further and proves herself to be just as competent and skillful as her older sisters.

It's a good thing their acting doesn't shift in quality, given how The Wrong Letter puts even greater focus on the inner conflicts among the Joneses than The Wrong Family. Pam suggesting to her sisters that Robin might be tempted to double-cross them in order to sell the company is a big development, with other revelations further adding to the tension. It's not as dynamic as what was seen in the previous film and there are more moments in this installment when you might find your attention drifting. But between the fun bursts of family drama and a very promising ending, The Wrong Letter offers enough action to keep you watching. And like the last film, we get a few reminders that the Joneses aren't all about catty remarks and unethical business practices. We get to see the vulnerable side of each Jones at some point, especially when SPOILER ALERT Kayla tragically loses her baby. Kayla is quietly dismayed (a well-delivered scene from Shellie Sterling), Pam and Carrie are heartbroken for their sister, and Robin is as emotional as we've seen her in the series thus far. Spoilers Over

Other returning players that don't lose their edge are Ted McGinley and Stacey Patino. McGinley continues to sell Webb Deveraux as a formidable opponent to the Joneses, with this film allowing McGinley to delve into Webb's venomous side. And while Maria's revenge wasn't nearly as explosive as I was hoping for, Patino is ferocious as Maria bares her claws and reveals herself to be just as underhanded, unstable, and greedy as her brother. Sadly, after giving a fantastic performance in The Wrong Family, Marcos James gets sidelined here. In the first movie, William French was a charismatic and conniving manipulator with a hint of danger about him; in the second, he's just a horndog sleeping with his fiancée's sister while casually hooking up with women in bars. So much for the "connection" he claimed to have with Pam when he was arguing with her in his last scene of The Wrong Family. SPOILER ALERT It's especially bizarre how little we see of his reaction to the loss of his and Kayla's unborn daughter. With all the morally challenged Jones women being written with humanizing nuance, writer Adam Rockoff certainly could've spared some of that for William. Spoilers Over

In notable new cast members, we have Adonis Williams in his film debut as Carrie's beau Lance Jenkins and Carmel Fisher as replacement maid Janet. No stranger to the DeCoteau Wrong-verse, Fisher (while working with a pretty static character) is still much more natural in the role than Debra Kay Lee was playing Robin's original maid Clara. I also couldn't help but enjoy how Janet gets more directly involved in the action, briefly teaming up with the Jones sisters in the final act. Williams, on the other hand, is dealt a poor hand for his first Lifetime movie. He's got some charming appeal whenever Lance is with Carrie; it's when we get to his other scenes of the movie that things fall apart. SPOILER ALERT First off, Lance's whole subplot about being Webb's estranged son is the least investing of the bunch. It's a blandly generic conflict between a cruel rich father and the son he abandoned and treated like a stranger. Williams' acting is noticeably stiffer during Lance's scenes with Webb and it doesn't help that Lance is such a sanctimonious hypocrite during these confrontations. While it seems we're supposed to sympathize with Lance for being the son of such a cold-hearted man, he really isn't much better than Webb for agreeing to help him in his plot against the Joneses. Spoilers Over

Only time will tell if The Wrong Blackmail will improve on Lance's characterization, but from the looks of the promos, it should definitely be a movie that provides more thrills than The Wrong Letter. Don't get me wrong, the film is far from dull and all the returning actors still give it their all. But when compared to the first film, you feel the dip in entertaining drama. However, if you enjoyed the characters in the first Keeping Up With the Joneses movie and/or the snappy in-fighting between the members of the titular family, there's sure to be enough juice in The Wrong Letter to maintain your interest and have you eagerly awaiting the trilogy's conclusion.

Score: 7 out of 10 orphan ferrets.