JONESING FOR FILMS

Ready or Not was a pleasant surprise in 2019, coming out at the tail end of summer, and it cemented actress Samara Weaving as a modern-day scream queen. It also established co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who would go on to relaunch the Scream franchise and put out 2024’s Abigail. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come gets the band back together for another, bigger game of hide and seek.

Set immediately after the events of the first movie (literally recreating the closing shot), Grace (Samara Weaving) awakens in a hospital only to find out in short order that surviving Hide and Seek on her wedding night against the Le Domas family has triggered an even bigger game, involving several other families, and the winner will essentially rule the world. Complicating matters for Grace is that her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) is thrust into the middle of the satanic festivities as well, and the sisters must try to survive the night togehter.

Sequels almost always feel the need to go bigger, which is not always better. There is world expansion here that, weirdly enough, reminded me of John Wick: Chapter Two, where there is a high council that runs that criminal world. In the world of Ready or Not, the High Counsel almost literally runs the world. An early scene shows, Chester Danforth (David Cronenberg), the patriarch of the family at the head of the High Council, literally making a phone call to shape world events in real time. His children, Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus (Shawn Hatosy), are the primary hunters of the hide and seek game, with other families vying for the throne by trying to kill Grace. Every family involved in the game has two participants, a head of the family, and an alternate.

Grace and Faith have a unique dynamic. In the first movie, Grace is presented as being an orphan with no family. Faith is introduced through some slick retconning that she left their orphaned life to make a better life for the two of them, and Faith resented her for abandoning her. I liked the dynamic between the two actresses as sisters who have issues but ultimately are there for each other. It’s an interesting contrast to the brother/sister dynamic of the Danforths.

Ready or Not was a lean movie that had a straightforward premise and got right into the swing of things. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come takes a while to really get going, having to tie together the end of the previous film into the events of this film, introduce Faith, and set the stage for the High Council family members. I felt a noticeable lag in the first half hour of the movie and explaining the rules, done by “The Lawyer” (Elijah Wood), Mr. Le Bail’s representative.

Once the game starts, though, the movie starts to feel more like the first movie and gets more entertaining. It’s a little silly, but there is also an earlier scene in the hospital where Grace changes out of his hospital gown and into her bloodstained bridal gown and converse sneakers, almost like she’s putting her battle uniform back on again.

Grace and Faith begin the game handcuffed to one another, while oddly felt like the story was handcuffing itself by putting an unnecessary degree of difficulty into the plot. Thankfully, that is disposed of early enough, but I was beginning to wonder and worry if they were going to be handcuffed together for the entire movie.

The movie starts to hit its stride when they lose the handcuffs. The fighting and the action is split pretty evenly between occurring during the daytime and nighttime, and thankfully it is all easy to see, nothing is excessively muddled by rain and darkness. The highlight fight of the film is actually takes place in an abandoned banquet hall where Grace and her ex-husband’s ex-girlfriend, Francesca El Caido (Maia Jae), have a “fight” after blinding each other with mace, all of which is set to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Highest of high comedy.

Again, the fact that it takes a while to really get going is an issue. Also, at times, it leans a bit too much on Samara Weaving having to scream in anguish at having something painful happen to her. I also wish it had z little something more compelling to say about the rich and powerful, aside from the satanic nature of their power.

Sequels cannot simply run it back with what made the first movie successful. This is often a big factor in why sequels can struggle and never measure up to the original. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come has its sequelitis struggles, especially early on, but on the whole is still a lot of fun and Weaving and Newton make a good pairing.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars