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Posted in: Movies, Review, Universal | Tagged: blumhouse, five nights at freddys 2, FNAF, universal
Five Nights At Freddy's 2: Look Out! Here Comes The Lore! {review}
More bloated than the first, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 gives fans what they wanted: more lore, scares, and more of the amazing animatronics.
Article Summary
- Five Nights at Freddy's 2 ramps up the scares, animatronics, and lore for a more intense horror experience.
- The film offers incredible sets and brilliant puppetry from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, visually stunning throughout.
- Expanded lore and side characters make the story less cohesive, leading to a bloated script and lost focus.
- Fans will enjoy more Freddy and friends, jump scares, and game-accurate moments, but gore stays off-screen.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 takes everything from the first one and supersizes it. More animatronics, more characters, more lore. Oh, so much more lore. When that happens, you have to take the good with the bad. While there are some good things that spring from that- the animatronics and puppetry in this film are amazing, the locations are full of easter eggs and some of the best-designed sets this year, you also have the bad. Unnecessary plot points make the story less cohesive. Some characters get sidelined to the detriment of the film. Still, FNAF 2 is just as enjoyable as the first, and quite a bit more frightening.
Five Nights At Freddy's 2 Delivers More Of What Fans Wanted
Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is trying to move on from the events of the first film and be a good parent to Abby (Piper Rubio). That also involves trying to keep a relationship with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) going, who is dealing with her own trauma from the first Five Nights at Freddy's. The three are drawn back into the world of Freddy Fazbear, while revelations of the origins of the animatronics and their maker, William Afton (Matthew Lillard), come to light when Abby reconnects with Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, and Foxy.
Emma Tammi is behind the camera again as director, this time working from a screenplay by the series creator, Scott Cawthon, writing alone. You can tell that, as much more of the runtime is devoted to exploring the lore of this universe than at any point in the first film. That should thrill fans; one of their big complaints about that first film was that the lore seemed mixed up. This is bad news for those of us who don't know any of said lore, though, as it gets a little murky in points and is not easy to follow. The film gets lost in the woods for a bit in the middle, trying to cram too much information into the slots they want it in, so they can get it out of the way and get to the good stuff. What would have helped would have been cutting out a good 15- 20 minutes of unnecessary diversions from the main cast. Tammi gets to shine, showing how well she can stretch a budget and deliver a gorgeous film. In all the right ways, this feels like a horror-filled universe you would actually want to spend some time in. The sets are incredible, with the type of staging that would make other directors jealous. What a fun world Tammi gets to play in, and in this one, she gets to move out of Freddy's as well and play in the real world, so to speak. It works well.
Sadly, that bloated script leaves little room for some characters. Mike is pretty much an afterthought here, which is a shame. Hutcherson was good in that first film, but he feels like he is just running around with no direction here. Lail was also surprisingly off her game. Strange, considering she basically leads the film with Rubio. She is just as delightful as she was in the first Five Nights at Freddy's, and even better, given how beefed-up her role is here. The rest of the new cast feels tacked on, and the cuts could have been made there. We are here to see these characters from that first film continue their stories. Everyone else in the movie is there to die, and the fat could have been easily trimmed.
As with the first film, the real standouts are Freddy and the gang themselves. All the animatronics and puppetry were handled by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and once again, they knocked it out of the park. From the new designs for the toy versions of the characters, to the weathered and gross looks of the discarded versions, this is some of the coolest looking work onscreen this year. Those who felt that the first film didn't feature Freddy and the gang enough need not worry here; they are everywhere. They also provide many more jump scares and hallmarks of the game's tone, another complaint from fans about the first film. They won't get the gore they want; all of that happens off-screen. Hey, Blumhouse has to make money, guys and girls!
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 could have been a pretty fantastic film. It just feels way less cohesive than that first one. For as much emphasis as they put on expanding the lore and universe, they included way too many unnecessary characters and deviations from the plot to give said lore time to breathe. Still, the action and scares are bumped up, and the price of the ticket alone is worth it for the work Henson's company did.
Five NIghts at Freddy's 2
7/10
Though more bloated than the first, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 gives fans what they wanted: more lore, more scares, and more of the amazing animatronics.
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