Friday, February 11, 2011

Quick Thoughts: Paranormal Activity 2

I told myself that I'd put off the over-hyped or super attention-getting films for a while, but I still decided to see this film.  Did I make a mistake?  Should I have watched the original first?  Let's see...

Just to note: this will be as SPOILER-free as possible.

Good
* If you love jump scares, this film has plenty.  It may sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not.
* If you really enjoy the 'real family' atmosphere, the film also has that in spades.
* Some of the dramatic moments near the end are handled well (i.e. the scene with the girl and the stairs).
* Tying it to the original film- via the original cast appearing- does make it feel less like a rehash than I thought it would.  However, that also presents some problems...

Bad
* Tying the two films together in the way they do, creates some serious confusion.  Is this film a sequel?  Because it starts out as a prequel, runs parallel to the other film and then becomes a sequel at the end?
* Speaking of which, the husband makes a 'Release the Kraken' joke.  I'm probably the only one who cares about this thing, but it creates an obvious issue: the story takes place in 2006!  Don't try to be topical!
* All of the 'fake-out' scares early on are obvious.  Who would fall for those?
* What was the point of the ghost/demon locking out the daughter and then doing nothing?  They're called PLOT POINTS for a reason.
* The movie is awkwardly-squeezed together with the other one.  It's point: to cover the unexplained points in the original film.
* I won't say more about it, but I will say this: the ending is stupid.  It happens and you just go 'that was dumb!'

Overall, it's not a terrible movie.  The biggest problem is that it doesn't have its own identity.  You can't watch this film on its own.  A sequel is not meant to be a conjoined twin!   It doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel either.

Of course, those people who really love this movie won't care what other people think.  At least we can agree with each other.

3 comments:

  1. yeah, the ending was one helluva letdown. would have given it a higher rating if the ending wasn't that stupid

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  2. I wanted more scared babies and less pool cleaner! Dead Man's Chest was released in 2006 though, so the humor was a legit but stupid attempt to properly date the film

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  3. That's kind of a cheat, but I can live with it. I just prefer it when films don't punch a hole in the Time-Space Continnum Superboy Prime-style.

    I definitely get why the series has appeal to people, but it just didn't do much for me. The drama was lacking, since I knew that ghosts would show up. Had I not known what was coming, I might have had a different reaction.

    Seriously, just imagined if Jason Voorhees had just busted through a wall at some point. THAT would have caught even me off-guard!

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