Force of Nature: The Dry 2

I found this movie to be really well done. The music, acting, writing, plot and overall STYLE is terrific.

There is a lot going on - several underlying plots and backstories. I won't spoil anything for you, but I'll give you a leg up on the backstory:

Alice works for a powerful law firm or accounting firm (or something) that launders money for powerful international criminals.

Her daughter had bullied another girl at their exclusive prep school, and the school had threatened to kick the girl out. Alice then stole money from her work and "donated" it to the school in order to keep her daughter from getting kicked out.

Eric Bana is a policeman who focuses on financial crimes, and he had caught Alice stealing the money. So now, Alice is an informant for Bana, and if Alice stops cooperating, Bana will make sure everybody finds out about her theft and she'll either go to jail or get killed by the crooked people she works for.

Then, Alice goes on a team-building hiking/camping trip with 4 other people she works for, and she disappears.

That's where the movie starts.

My wife and I just picked it sort of at random out of the gigantic number of movies on all of our streaming services, but we were very pleasantly surprised.

Every once in a while you just stumble upon a gem, and this definitely qualifies.

A sequel to 2021's sleeper hit The Dry, Force Of Nature: The Dry 2 once again follows brooding detective Aaron Falk where after his informant (Anna Torov) gets lost in the forest on a work retreat he joins a search and rescue team to help find her. Along the way he's forced to confront more of his childhood trauma.

Unfortunately the title for this movie sets the stage for what is a pretty convoluted and muddled movie and is overall a step down in my opinion compared to the first. There are three competing storylines here, the group of women, Aaron's trauma from his past and a serial killer subplot that literally goes nowhere. All of these storylines compete for attention but in the end they all end up falling flat. Also with the exception of Eric Bana as Falk almost every other character in this movie is unlikable (with maybe the only other exception being Mortal Kombat's Sisi Stringer.) With so much going on here it's surprising how unsatisfying and bland this movie was. Five stars for Bana though who is pretty much the only reason this might be worth your time.

Jane Harper wrote a third and final Aaron Falk book that was published last year so I feel like it's inevitable that it also gets adapted to make a trilogy out of this. Hopefully it's more in line with the first movie compared to this and it can finally give Bana's Aaron Falk some sense of happiness because the amount of past and present trauma he's endured throughout both Dry movies is kind of crazy.

I saw it by accident: its first week.

A noble idea got destroyed by poor scripting and politically-correct casting. Its big merit was the filming, Australian bush landscapes, but even those scenes had to be moody dull. There was far too much intertwining of timelines and unexplained lines. What body was found? Whose son found the body found by someone else. The lone wolf federal investigator was a Hollywood cliche, as were the classic eyeball confrontation scenes with the notional hero vs the police chief.

What stood out? Debra LF as Jill: an incongruous character in the plot, and with a mismatched husband, but still a great performance.

Do what I did: see it at a theatre which lets you brin in wine in a glass.

Who doesn't love a good mystery/thriller movie?

Personally I'm a big fan and have watch lists for this very genre on various streaming services to last me till the Zombie Apocalypse is over and we can all crawl out of our bunkers again and drive Mad Max style into the dusty distance.

It's kind of ironic that the sequel to "The Dry" is called "Force Of Nature: The Dry 2" when it's set in a wet forest and the biggest hindrance to a search and recovery operation is a huge storm cell.

As one of the production companies involved in the making of this project "Made Up Stories" likes to say, "Tell Me A Story".

Okay, Five women head out on a remote hiking retreat but only four return, each telling a different story.

The whistle blower/insider is missing and if they don't find her quickly, presumed dead!

There are more suspects than children at a Wiggles concert.

Detective Aaron Falk (Eric Bana: affectionately known as Poida by most Aussies) must find out what really happened before time runs out and the rains come ma.

Eric reprises his role to star alongside fresh characters in "Force of Nature" played by Anna Torv ("Newsreaders"), Deborah-Lee Furness, Jacqueline McKenzie, Richard Roxburgh and others.

Robert Connolly is back in his Director Chair and although this is not truly a sequel with no connection to the original it is the second chapter from a series of books authored by Jane Harper (who must be laughing all the way to the bank) her follow up novel to the original story "The Dry".

Honestly they should have dropped "Dry" from the title, but at least people remember that wonderful film that punched above its weight.

Filming for this movie traveled away from rural Victoria into rugged, dangerous Dandenong Ranges National Park (The Basin) in Australia in 2022, but its release was delayed by 5 months due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Unfortunately this film is not the force of nature I was hoping for after the massive success with both critics and movie goers of "The Dry".

I even burst out laughing during what was meant to be a climatic serious waterfall scene...I know I'm a sick puppy...tell my therapist.

"Force of Nature" is hobbled by a pedestrian, convoluted plot with 3 layers that gets too busy with messy results, but it does get some brownie points for beautiful cinematography, editing & haunting soundtrack.

The acting felt dialled in/paint by numbers with certain people (I'm looking at you McKenzie, who is normally great) and the script/screenplay just got lost in translation and felt wooden and predictable.

Don't even get me started on Falks backstory and history with this mountain range that tried to pull at the heart strings, but lacked the mystery of the original.

As for the "serial killer" subplot it just fizzled and fell flat like a bottle of champagne left uncorked overnight.

"Force Of Nature: The Dry 2" tried to be all "Picnic At Hanging Rock" in a 21st century woke women's retreat way and missed the mark to get lost in the forest for the trees.

A significant Australian made hit in early 2021, The Dry was both a critical and commercial success as the tale of Eric Bana's softly spoken federal agent Aaron Falk returning to his isolated hometown to help solve a murder of an old friend resonated across a wide spanning film going community, with many thankful that author Jane Harper's creation had more coming for them with her book series having multiple Falk entries planned.

A victim of last years Hollywood strike that saw its August 2023 release postponed until recent weeks, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (an unfortunate title if there ever was one for multiple reasons) finally arrives with Bana and director Robert Connolly on board once more but sadly this time around much of the goodwill and good work that the first Dry entry left us with is gone here on a drab and damp next instalment that makes one wonder if Falk's cinematic adventures are going to be short-lived from here on out.

Far removed from the dusty and dried out surrounds of the first film, Nature finds the sleepwalking Bana and new zombified version of Falk venturing out into the Victorian mountain ranges to help with the search efforts for Anna Torv's Alice, an informant of Falk's who has gone missing in the rugged wilds during a corporate retreat that includes such colleagues as Deborra-Lee Furness's Jill, Robin McLeavy's Lauren and Richard Roxburgh's shady CEO Daniel and while the landscape we and Falk find ourselves in now have a flavour and energy, much of what happens in this wannabe Agatha Christie-lite tale is far from engaging.

Suffering from a central mystery that isn't entirely gripping and a procedural that is like a robotic progression of ticking a few boxes before climaxing in a far from memorable fashion, the core of Nature's problems stem directly from the material it's adapting and Connolly and Bana's inability to infuse that with any extra movie magic that would have made this well-budgeted Australian production anything but a pretty but extremely minor distraction.

The Dry found success in its mix of cinematic qualities rarely found in local productions, interesting main and side characters and a murder mystery that gripped from the first frame, all ingredients that aren't found in Nature, with the film failing to ever engage to a high level as we trudge along our way through mostly dialogue themed interactions with a bunch of fairly unlikeable and undeveloped characters we come to care very little about.

Initially set up to be what could have been an iconic new addition to Australian cinema history it's sad to see Falk the character and Bana the performer with so little to do here and despite some attempts to create more engagement through flashbacks and one of the most bizarre serial killer subplots I can recall, the story of Falk and his future potential don't seem so appealing moving forward after a bright initial start.

Final Say -

Well-filmed and full of possibilities, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is a nothing more than major step backwards from the original 2021 outing and a mediocre effort from all involved, potentially halting the cinematic universe of Aaron Falk in its tracks.

2 hazardous waterfalls out of 5.

Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)