‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ Review: Double The Gore, Double The Lore
Out of all the films to get a potential sequel, Ready or Not certainly isn’t the first that most would think of, mainly because that film left its ending pretty clear cut with not a ton of directions to go down. But directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (known together as Radio Silence) seem well aware of falling into the dreaded unnecessary sequel territory.
Ready or Not 2 ups the elements of the original in nearly every regard, from the expansive lore additions to the devil worship of even more of the rich to potential world-ending stakes, and of course, buckets of blood. This leads to what can be described as a superficially fun experience that’s an inventive spin on the original film’s ideas in some ways and a tired retread in others.
Radio Silence has proven multiple times that they can execute some superb sequences in genre filmmaking, and that fact is no different here. However, the plights of Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy’s screenplay to deepen the rules of the games bog down the fun pace rather than add to it. This leads to elements like the central bond between our two leads being more undercooked than they should.
Ready or Not 2 is never a bad time, and Samara Weaving is excellent, as always, but this sequel juggles so much trying to up the ante from its predecessor that it becomes the far more forgettable entry in the process.
Ready or Not 2’s expanded world-building
The sequel quite literally picks up exactly where the first film ended, with Grace MacCaulley (Weaving) smoking a cigarette and exiting the mayhem of the Le Domas home that’s being burnt to a crisp. Naturally, after everything that went down, she needs medical assistance from the paramedics at the scene and is immediately taken to the hospital.
When Grace comes to her hospital bed, she’s met with accusations of murder from the events of the first film and her estranged sister, whom she never removed from her emergency contact, Faith (Kathryn Newton). The two bicker right and it’s clear they have a rocky history, but they’ll have to put their differences aside as a new game of hide and seek is about to kick off that’s even deeper than Grace could think of.
After being kidnapped at the hospital, Mr. Le Bail’s lawyer (Elijah Wood) explains to Grace that her defeating the Le Domas family has led to the high chair seat officially being vacant. Now families in the council from across the world have to compete in another game to kill Grace for the seat. With the stakes higher than ever and her sister in the mix, Grace must be more resilient than ever to outlast and outwit the rich, who are willing to do anything to retain their grip on world power.
This sequel goes bigger for better and worse
Ready or Not 2’s world-building of the original’s devil cult family foundation is certainly an inspired idea to take things, considering it seemed there were no other directions to go. There’s a whole new set of rules on over what you can use to hunt, who you can’t hunt, and a new rogues gallery of rich families like the Danforth twins Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus (Shawn Hatosy), Ignacio El Caído (Nestor Carbonell), Wan Chen Xing (Olivia Cheng), and plethora of more rich crazies who want to kill their way to the top.
It clearly represents a doubling down of the original film’s payoff of seeing all these rich jerks getting mostly blown to smithereens as another escalation to the film’s standard “eat the rich” themes. The issue is, there’s only so far you can take a John Wick-like world-building of your central concept before it mainly is a retread in most respects, in a perfect case of where bigger isn’t always better.
The new rules to the game and new characters alongside them are all lost within some copious amounts of exposition dumps and a story that’s mostly the same thing again. There’s little space for new ideas, despite the filmmakers wanting you to think they’ve added a lot more to the formula.
Elements of the story that are eternally frustrating are the underdeveloped throughlines of Grace and Faith’s sibling relationship and the themes of keeping true to yourself or selling out for more. The movie skates across these ideas throughout in some interesting conversations between Grace and Faith, questions of why Grace truly wanted to marry into a rich family in the first place.
Weaving and Newton are fun as always, but it’s truly only a scratch at the surface, as anytime these ideas gain any formation they’re dropped for something else. Most of them are lost to the same repetitive greatest hits moments of the original, which causes the sister abandonment dynamics to especially suffer, trapped between tiresome on-and-off bickering between the two characters.
The film is never all misses, however, in large part thanks to when the cat and mouse games delve into more experimentation between kills and chases and an always game Samara Weaving. Most of the cast does the most with what they’re given, even when under surprisingly stinted screentime, and this sequel does have a bit more fun with the physical comedy and absurdity of each subsequent scene.
Weaving has essentially become a staple of many recent horror films, with this acting as one of her most famous roles. She balances every angle of tonal inflection and thrilling set pieces of Radio Silence films so well. Her amazing facial expressions, killer final girl scream, and plenty of badassery, to boot, make her truly the standout of both films in the franchise. She’s able to further elevate what would normally be seen as even more sequel growing pains on the page.
Final thoughts on Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come exists as a fine sequel in most respects. It’ll appease horror fans just wanting double the blood and double the stakes of how far a game of hide and seek can really go. But its attempts to double up on the first film’s ideas end up more unimaginative than inventive.
The cast is nearly all game for the blood bath, and Radio Silence are sturdy picture makers within the genre space, but the screenplay’s monotonous lore, underbaked ideas make for an in-the-moment fun but still largely forgettable continuation to what would’ve been fine as a stand-alone film.
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