Parents' Guide to Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

The original film was a 2019 sleeper hit that scored with its fresh blend of bloody gore and absurd humor, but this sequel amps up the former and minimizes the latter, diminishing the impact. Weaving is still a powerhouse—and Grace still a character you want to succeed—but Ready or Not 2: Here I Come forgot to surround her with the ripe evil-rich-folk characters that made the first outing such a kick. The OG Ready or Not boasted Andie MacDowell as a devious mother-in-law, Adam Brody as Grace's feckless brother-in-law, and Nicky Guadagni as mean old Aunt Helene, she of the frozen stink face and witchy line delivery that made every frame of her on-screen presence a delight. Here I Come replaces this delicious band of cads with colorless plutocrats who don't have enough screen time to come through as anything more than stereotypes. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Nestor Carbonell make the most of their roles, slinking around the film's expansive mansion with weapons aloft and ironic line deliveries intact, but the filmmakers focus more time on battles and death scenes than they do on Grace and Faith's attackers, draining the original's best source of laughs dead away.

There's also a deadening feeling of sameness to Here I Come: Once more we're watching Grace, in her blood-soaked wedding gown, tiptoeing around a large estate as she evades attackers all night long. Here I Come tries to amp up the stakes by giving viewers one more hapless hunted victim, but the relationship between Grace and Faith never truly gels, perhaps because their backstory is delivered lightning-fast in expository dialogue between fight scenes. Having Grace and Faith oppose several different families, each with members that are called in, baseball dugout-style, if the previous family member is killed, was probably also meant to heighten Here I Come's tension. But it has the opposite effect, making each hunter more or less indistinguishable from the rest because they come and go so quickly. Grace is still an appealing lead and there are good moments in Here I Come, such as a hand-to-hand battle between two characters who can't see each other because they've been pepper-sprayed in the face. But Here I Come is ultimately a prime example of a sophomore slump. It has more of everything, from budget to characters to viewer expectations, and yet audiences will likely finish the film feeling let down, disappointed by another sequel that fails to do or say something new.