Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a good sequel, but it could’ve benefited from being approached from a different and fresher angle.
Written by Mariane Tremblay
Seven years after Ready or Not (2019), Grace MacCaulley (Samara Weaving) is back on our screens, once again fighting for her life in a nightmarish game, but this time against not just one, but all the families of the High Council.
Directed again by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Scream, Scream VI, Abigail), Ready or Not 2: Here I Come picks up exactly where the first movie left off, with Grace sitting on the steps of the burning Le Domas family mansion, in shock, smoking a cigarette and covered in blood, as first responders arrive behind her. What happened? In-laws.
After she faints, she is taken to the hospital, but instead of finding safety, she quickly becomes the prime suspect and is handcuffed and questioned by a detective (Grant Nickalls). She’s then joined by her estranged sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton), who was still designated as her emergency contact. From the moment she joins her sister, you can sense the tension between the two of them.
Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, Chester Danforth (body horror legend David Cronenberg), the head of The High Council of an order of six elite families running the world, is notified by The Lawyer (Elijah Wood) that Grace survived Hide-and-Seek and that the Le Domas family has died, triggering a clause stipulating that they should play the game again to determine who would now seat in the High Seat of the Council. A so-called “privilege” for Grace, who won the first game.
Grace and Faith are then kidnapped from the hospital to be brought to the Danforth resort, where the other families are waiting for them to arrive to start the second game: Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar, whose comeback to the big screen is one of the best things that happened in recent years) and Titus Danforth (Shawn Hatosy, who gives a chilly performance), Wan Chen Xing (Olivia Cheng) and her son (Antony Hall), Viraj Rajan (Nadeem Umar-Khitab), his brother (Varun Saranga), and his brother’s wife (Masa Lizdek), and Ignacio El Caido (Nestor Carbonell), and his two children (Maia Jae and Juan Pablo Romero). The rules are essentially the same: Grace has to survive until sunrise in order to win the High Seat of the Council; otherwise, the seat goes to whoever kills her.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is an entertaining and logical sequel, but it is definitely not as good as the original. With a few exceptions, sequels rarely live up to the quality of their predecessors; whether they have the same cast and crew or not, it is often difficult to recapture the essence and the magic of a first installment. This sequel is far from being a bad movie, but it cannot quite recreate the same feeling you get while watching Ready or Not.
The premise is actually quite interesting: knowing about the families’ pact with Satan, Grace was never going to get away with it that easily—and “easily” might even be an understatement, since her options were either another deadly game of Hide-and-Seek or prison. The sequel also gives the audience an understanding of the bigger picture and what was really going on with the Le Domas family, just when we thought we knew everything from Ready or Not. However, something is missing from this sequel. Maybe it’s because most of it takes place during the day, but the eerie atmosphere that defined the first movie is mostly absent, and that atmosphere is what made the original so tense. And perhaps the fact that they are going through a second round of Hide-and-Seek, and not another game, gives a somewhat repetitive feel that takes away some of the excitement.
And what could've made this sequel even more compelling is the reunion between Grace and Faith, who haven’t seen each other in years. Not only do they have to fight for survival for hours, but they have to do it together, while confronting their past and the distance that grew between them, because ultimately their survival not only depends on escaping the High Council, but also on learning to trust each other again. But alas, I felt like this storyline lacked emotion and didn't really add the emotional layer I was looking for.
Although one thing is certain: at the beginning of the movie, you will probably think you know how it ends—but no, you don't. And this part of unpredictability is probably what makes Ready or Not 2: Here I Come the most interesting. While it might not be as gruesome as the first movie (though some parts are extremely violent), it still gives us some bloody kills, a few good laughs and interesting twists.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a good sequel, but could’ve benefited from being approached from a different and fresher angle, allowing the audience to feel the same thrill we experienced when watching the first movie. But I’m sure if you loved the first movie as much as I do, you’ll enjoy this sequel and have fun with it. Now playing in theatres!
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