Director: Emma Tammi
Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard
Rating: (M)
★+
REVIEWED BY THOMAS GREEN
Let’s just put this bluntly, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Rialto, Reading) is a train wreck. Based on the popular animatronic-mascot horror video games created by Scott Cawthon (who has written the screenplay here), this dismal scrapheap of a sequel places all its bets on praying that the cheering of loyal fans drown out any constructive critiques. Admittedly, the machines crafted by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop for the film look incredible, and the scant satisfaction to be had while watching resides within these marvellous technical feats. But for what is essentially a feature-length movie about seeing your favourite character at Disneyland, with an occasional vapid jumpscare, what is there to enjoy once that novelty wears off?
Set one year after the "death" of William Afton (Matthew Lillard), the man behind the slaughter of five children at one of the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria franchise sites, security guard Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) tries to help his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio) move forward from the frightening events of yesteryear. But Abby longs to reunite with her animatronic friends (Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy, who have the souls of Afton’s young victims trapped inside them), leading her to an abandoned sister location in search of them. Instead, she encounters newer remodels of the mechanical gang, which unbeknownst to her, are being puppeteered by yet another animatronic, the Marionette (also possessed by one of Afton’s victims), which seeks to exact vengeance upon the adults who neglected her final cries for help all those years ago.
If this reads like the poorly-contextualised hyperactive stammerings of a kid recounting their favourite show, then you should know that a comprehensible story apparently isn’t a priority when you’re making something "for the fans".
A lot of the problems here can be traced back to the multimedia franchise inherently being a poor fit for the big screen. The mysteries within Cawthon’s videogames worked in large part because of their minimalist storytelling and sparse characters, encouraging fans to run amok with creating crazy speculative theories. So, it comes as no surprise that Cawthon’s strengths start showing massive cracks when faced with writing actual humans for a blockbuster film.
Dialogue is particularly dreadful, the performances of the mentally checked-out cast feeling incredibly stiff and mechanical (ironically, more than their literal robotic co-stars). Otherwise, the inconsequential narrative aimlessly plods along through tangential subplots with zero urgency, barely outpacing the clunky trodding of the animatronic adversaries.
Inexplicably using the last juice in its battery to cram in a teaser for a fan-favourite character in the inevitable third instalment, the film’s credits roll before director Tammi can reach an organic conclusion.
So, nevermind storytelling, we’re talking franchise here, and the satisfied applause from the fans I heard in my theatre afterwards will doubtless count for more than any criticism ever could.
