Those expecting any sort of legitimate followup to the events of the first movie will be sorely disappointed. The first movie was a surprisingly taut home invasion thriller spearheaded by an amazing performance by Stephen Lang, excellent writing and murky morality. There were enough threads left by the finale to justify a sequel, but they are ignored within the opening moments of this worthless follow up. Instead of the shifting morality and motivations of the previous film, this one opens presenting the Blind Man as a villainous character, which mandates everyone else in the film be ‘worse’. This results in a cartoonish gallery of reprehensible characters without any redeeming factor, and forcing the audience to ‘root’ for a truly horrible character. To that end, there are certainly entertaining moments of horror to be had, as the blind man ruthlessly dispatches his opponents in increasingly gory and creative ways. Lang is fun to watch, and commands a truly intimidating presence onscreen, but there is little sympathy or investment in his mission beyond the trope-tastic ‘save the precocious child’. On the whole, this movie doesn’t detract or insult the original film, but adds little and provides less than its running time in worth.
Don't Breathe 2 (2021)