Bird Box: Barcelona

I was really looking forward to this, and whilst it's an okay thriller, it's got alot to live up to and fails to hit the mark.

The storyline is clever, acting is good, however it feels after watching it that the actual premise of the story is quite weak, and was infact carried by the actors of the first one, in particular Miss Sandra Bullock.

I will admit that it was good to see another scenario outcome of the outbreak, and the city of Barcelona was a good decision, the last 5 minutes of the film kinda made me want another sequal, but all in all an extremely mediocre film that's ridden on the coat tails of its predecessor.

Not sure what I watched or why.

1. There is no one to root for. It is hard to have a movie where there is no one to care about or root for. It removes all the stakes. There is no true protagnoist and you spend the movie watching random characters appear on screen then die.

2. The 'twist' does not help the movie but starts it down the frustrating path.

3. Stupidity. All you need to to to survive is close your eyes, that simple. You could VERY EASILY open your eyes for a split second to see where you are going and close them again. Just because you open your eyes does not mean you have to keep them open, looking around, and do not react when the 'creature' is near. These are experienced survivors yet they are making first day mistakes for no reason at all outside of this being a bad movie.

4. The acting is surprisingly good.

5. The storyline/plot is stupid, not really explained ,with story being borderline criminal.

Overall, it's well acted, but Birdbox: Barcelona is lacking the spark to make it interesting. There are a few highlights, but the majority is rather plodding and lacks the tension that should keep the audience engaged. The sets are well put together and Barcelona is convincingly transformed into a post-apocalyptic shadow of itself. The lack of plot elements to keep the pace results in this being more Boredbox than Birdbox, just a shadow of the gripping original.

Such a shame. I enjoyed the original Birdbox and loved the idea of seeing it played out from another angle, in a city I know so well.

So while this film isn't quite as good as the first, its not a bad follow up from Spain to the 2018 original US film by any stretch.

There are some instances of bad CGI and the story progression to the overall universe was quite minimal and these two factors certainly explain some of the lower reviews by critics and viewers alike, but overall I'd award this film a solid 65.

It does drag on a little and the conclusion was a bit predictable but overall I was satisfied by how they deepened the lore and story with the additions they made. I won't get into spoiler territory here but I liked how they told another story which coincided with the events from the first film and told from another part of the world. I'll certainly be in the circle of people interested to see what the next addition to this franchise will be - I think there's a solid cult classic in the making here.

65/100, would recommend.

The first movie was insultingly stupid filler, made watchable by Sandy Bullock. But Georgina Campbell is in this one and I thought she might bring something fresh to the screen. I was wrong. It's a basic retread, with all the same logical brain-hurts of the first movie, only brain-hurtier.

Mario Casas, a good actor, plays a boring man who is boring. He is escorting a kid through the post-apocalyptic streetssjc#'gch... sorry, I got bored of typing. You know the plot. It's Plot Number 1 from the Big Book of Plots - a bunch of generic humans stumble through derivative scenes until one of them gets yeeted in a flourish of Adobe After Effects plugins.

Do not expect suspense or horror. The director does not know what these things are. The sci-fi elements are completely ignored, so if you've seen the first one, there's nothing new here.

The score is shockingly bad, ever-present and thematically stagnant throughout the entire runtime. The dual-language Spanish setting could have worked well, but they do absolutely nothing with it.

The whole thing reeks of tax breaks. Somewhere, in a Netflix boardroom, people with expensive habits are very pleased with themselves.