Take 62: Ready or Not 2: Here I Come
Picking right up moments after the end of the previous film, the dark action comedy Ready or Not, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come continues the nightmare that Grace’s (Samara Weaving) life has become. And, because she forget to update her emergency contact her information at the hospital, her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) is brought into the fray. Because the La Domas family failed in its attempt to kill Grace in the first movie, their is now a void in membership that now needs to be filled, four other rival families from the High Council are now hunting Grace AND Faith. Will the sisters be able to overcome their issues long enough to survive until dawn against this twisted band of international assassins or will their tumultuous relationship be their undoing?
This one had me from jump. Though I hadn’t seen the original since it was out in the theaters, they did a great job catching the audience up and setting the stage. The use of “Will You Still Love Me” was a great choice for the opening scene/ recap montage. The stakes are set early too: the poor girl has JUST gone through hell and doesn’t even have time to recover from the trauma and injuries of the last movie! It all starts just after she has been taken to the hospital. It that doesn’t you rooting HARD for her, nothing else will.
The visuals are pretty cool. Once the gauntlet has been thrown down and she knows what she is in for, she decides that the hospital gown she is in is not going to cut it. She decides to don the only other clothes she has- the blood drenched gown and yellow sneakers she wore in the first film. Gotta say, it’s instantly pretty dang iconic. There is also gore aplenty a some pretty fun action scenes. There is in one moment with a bazooka that is played rather subtlety but one of the funniest “how-has-no-one-has-every-done-this-before” moments ever.
This one definitely feels bigger in scope. As I said earlier, there is a motley crew of international assassain this time. They are some bigger names involved this time too. It is really nice seeing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s recent renaissance. Her Ursula Danforth is pretty diabolical. As his her on-screen brother, Shawn Hatosy as Titus Danforth. Elijah Wood plays a really cool character known as simply The Lawyer. Nestor Carbonell who usually plays characters I really love, get to flex a different muscle as Ignacio El Caido. And these are just a few. It’s a sizable cast of interesting characters and everyone is great. The scope of this film is definitely bigger and the thing I really like about it is it seems like they actively sought out these roles because they saw the first and just wanted to join the franchise.
Samar Weaving definitely carries the movie though. She is equally bad-@$$ and relatable. She spends most of the movie looking a hot mess and not many would be comfortable doing that but there she is. When she finally does get to the do the glammed up thing. It was like, wow, she’s really pretty, but that’s so easy to get wrapped up in the action of the story that just doesn’t allow much of that from her character.
Somehow, I forgot the fact that High Council is into some of time devil worship. That might turn some off. That stuff typically doesn’t still well with me either (have you read my review of HIM- of course not, you didn’t comment. ;-) )Here I am okay with it, because of how it is integrated in the plot and the ending is pretty satisfying. I am also typically not a fan of dark comedy, but here it works, dare I say if, better than the first. Where the first one felt heavier, this one did a better job of balancing the grounded with the absurd. There are plenty of moments where you are meant to laugh and I appreciated that. I saw somewhere that reviews were mixed on this one, some saying that the plot was too similar to the first. Have they not seen M3GAN? That one veered so far from the original that it was almost unwatchable. This one built on what came before and for me was a resounding success. This one was a really good time for me!
My score: 8.8
Ready or not, leave comment below. And until next time…
