Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio, Elizabeth Lail, McKenna Grace, and Matthew Lillard.

Director: Emma Tammi

What’s Good: There are some cool and creepy sequences with the iconic animatronics, but other than that, I can feel the film struggling to get out of mediocre territory.

What’s Bad: The script makes the characters more annoying than ever, and the overall plot feels like a waste of time.

Loo Break: The movie is short, but you can go to the loo at any point during the second act, and you won’t be missing much.

Watch or Not?: I would only recommend watching it if you’re a fan of the video game franchise, if not, better stay away from it.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Theaters

Runtime: 104 minutes.

User Rating:

Opening:

Hollywood is having a hard time, and they are definitely looking for the next big thing. Now that superhero films are basically dead in the water and trying to recapture their glory, video game adaptations seem to be the new trend, and with a first film overperforming expectations, it was a matter of time before a new Five Nights at Freddy’s was on our way, and it is here, right now, but sadly it is not the improvement we wanted over the first installment.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Movie Review: Script Analysis

It is hard to adapt a video game to the screen because video games, as a medium, have the advantage of being interactive. That element basically dethrones many from film, as the audience feels like they are part of the stories and worlds, and that their actions have consequences. In contrast, in a film, the audience can place the blame on the character on screen instead of themselves, which diminishes the risk and horror factor that horror games can generate.

And so, when writer and producer Scott Cawthon manages to fail in achieving that sense of risk in his script, well, everything else follows, as the script doesn’t know how to create interesting characters that the audience can root for, with several moments in the film actually making the characters so annoying and boring that you might wish that Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica could actually take them from the story and have this film over with.

In fact, while there are certainly a lot of Easter eggs and lore dumping for fans of the games, these elements don’t really make the story better as a film. They actually might alienate some new audience members that might want to get into the franchise, the execution is just too sloppy. It lacks any sense of passion, resulting in a film that feels like just a setup for part 3, coming soon.

The video game adaptation curse has been present for decades, but it seemed to have been defeated recently, at least for a while. However, it is very clear that jumping from medium to medium makes these video game stories lose a lot, and if the filmmakers don’t have the passion to actually come up with solid and reasonable reasons for their character to take action throughout the story, then these are going to have a hard time working as more than just an advertisement for a pre-existing product.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Movie Review: Star Performance

Josh Hutcherson has always been solid, even in the first film, which lacked tension and overall horror factor, Hutcherson managed to feel like a pillar where the entire film could rest upon, and it is the same situation here, as the actor places himself as a force of reason within the cast and plays his character as well as he can, taking into account the quality of the script.

The same cannot be said for the character of Vanessa, played by Elizabeth Lail, who is betrayed by the script, transforming her into one of the most annoying characters ever and, for some, even the real villain of the piece; and while Lail is trying to do her best, the script doesn’t let her. This might lose more than one audience member, as the script just goes from bad decision to bad decision without much logic behind it.