Brief Story Line
Film started with the scene of Day 1 of the aliens attack in the small town where Lee (John Krasinski - Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan TV series, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi etc), his wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt - Mary Poppins Returns, Sherlock Gnomes etc) and their children were watching children's baseball game. Flash forward to the Day 474, after the events of the first movie, Evelyn, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe - No Sudden Move, Ford v Ferrari etc) were trying to move to another location from their previous place.
As they were doing so, they met with a lone survivor later on revealed to be Emmet (Cillian Murphy - Dunkirk, Peaky Blinders TV series etc). When Regan found out something while at Emmet's place, she decided to go and investigate on her own. This made Evelyn has to decide on how to help her while at the same time taking care of Marcus and the baby.
So how would the story continue? You could find them all in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well because I loved the first movie so much, I have really high expectation of how the story would continue after such a fantastic and thrilling experience. And when I watched the first 10 minutes I thought this is a great way to first show us what happened on the attack, it gave a wonderful perspective, plus intelligently inserting John Krasinski into the film again. Then as expected the story continued with its silent movement but not long before the suspense started again.
Story progressed a bit with the appearance of Cillian Murphy. He gave a different color to the movie as compared to the previous male lead because of his complete different character. As the story progressed though, I could not help feeling the intensity was a bit lesser than the first movie. There were few brief suspenseful moments, with the highlight that scene near the shore. But what truly surprised me though was the ending. I did not realize that I have reached that part. Perhaps because there did not feel like a built up towards it. But it was still an awesome ending.
The special effects of the movie was still as good as the first movie. But what I don't get was the budget of this second movie was more than 3 times of the original one as I did not see significant changes in the visual effects. I think it was used to pay the more cast they had to hire like Murphy and Djimon Hounsou - Captain Marvel, Shazam! etc) and possibly more production value like extras, stunts people, settings/locations.
For his idea of how to expand the story, I thought Krasinski did a great job. But as I said above, I am not sure why but the intensity was not felt throughout the whole movie. And another thing I felt missing was the emotional moment which were plenty in the original movie. Also there did not seem to be a built up towards the finale, leaving me a bit amazed of how the film ended. It just make me somehow feel that this is an in between film towards the third of a trilogy (surely there would be a third movie after that kind of ending).
Overall this is still an amazing movie. Still love this family's dynamic and I really love Millicent Simmonds performance in here as she took a bit of a central role. The universe expansion was pretty smart and I also love the first 10 minutes of the movie. And even though it still has the suspense and intensity, but the lack of emotions (for me personally) and the feeling this is a filler towards grand finale made me love the first movie more. So if you have seen the first film, definitely watch this to ready yourself for final movie. But if you have not seen that one yet, please watch it first before seeing this one. Don't forget, this movie is now available on Catchplay+ for a certain fee.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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