At several points, the wheels threaten to fly off the wagon - the plot branches into directions that would take a whiteboard and a flow chart to keep track of who is killed or about to be killed, and who the murderers are.

In the first film, the game-reset idea allowed Tree (Rothe) to be victim and detective. She died, the day reset and, with each iteration, she crept closer to unmasking her killer.

But that slasher-movie-meets-Groundhog Day (1993) premise is gone, replaced by a plot that picks at a time-travel loophole.

In movies like Back To The Future (1985), when Marty McFly finds himself in his new, happy future at the film's end, how is it he is not troubled by the fact that he is a fake?

Broke McFly has, in all the important ways, stolen Rich McFly's life. The former has none of the memories of family and loved ones enjoyed by the latter. Time travel, in other words, facilitates identity theft.

That is the quandary in which Tree finds herself.

While she struggles with imposter syndrome as a result of time tampering, murderous deeds occur, but the crimes take a back seat to Tree's version of Neo's red-pill-versus-blue-pill struggle in The Matrix (1999).

Tonally, because there is more story to get through, the light comedy of the first movie has been supplanted by a more frantic, adventure-based mood.

The ticking clock in the movie is the machine in the physics laboratory that caused Tree's time-looping problem and is also the key to fixing it.

Its ability to work is thrown for a loop by school administrators, who appear as a new set of villains inadvertently helping the killers.

Thankfully, Tree's stay-or-go dilemma is emotionally astute and poignant, saving this story from sinking into its own convolutions.