In 2018 Netflix released the instantly successful filmBird Boxstarring Sandra Bullock. Viewership and discussion of the movie were widespread over social media prior to its release for several weeks. The film received a plethora of positive feedback from both fans and critics alike.
This horror mysterytook place in an apocalyptic world where strange and unknown creatures have come to Earth and drive people to commit suicide upon seeing them. Our main character Malorie is pregnant when the chaos ensues, and becomes trapped inside a house with a group of people, including another pregnant woman.
Both go into labor and give birth within minutes of each other, but Olympia unfortunately catches a glimpse outside and is driven to jump out the window. Malorie raises both babies herself and the movie goes on to follow their journey as they search for a safe place to live and attempt to outrun the various threats of the outside world, all while completely blindfolded.
Five years later,Bird Box Barcelonawas released as a spinoff to the original. This one operates within the same post-apocalyptic world but this time it takes place in (you guessed it) Barcelona. However, this movie introduces a twist. People are able to see the creatures and not become compelled to kill themselves, but rather, they seem to become hypnotized to force others to see the creatures.
Upon seeing them,people will either kill themselves, or become “indoctrinated” into this strange cult whose mission it is to make the world open their eyes and gaze upon the mysterious beings. Our main character Sebastian however, is able to break free of the manipulation and save the life of a woman and child who remind him of the wife and daughter that he has lost.
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Is the Sequel Better Than the Original?
As can be expected, there are a mix of opinions about the sequel/spinoff. There are fans who praise the sequel andconsider it better than the original. Because although the spinoff continues to not reveal the entity, they have further expanded upon how the creatures affect people through audio and visual manifestations of their worst fears, deepest secrets, and longing for their loved ones.
The movie also shows how the creatures interact with the environment to a certain extent, with things on the streets floating and shifting as they become present.
This new element to the movie, while it doesn’t give us any further insight into what these beings are, does help us understand more what the characters are experiencing when they become hypnotized. And it turns out that the creatures may have evolved to use voices against people, that of their loved ones calling out to them to take off their blindfolds. For Sebastian who has seen and not killed himself, he is presented with a hallucination of his daughter who encourages him to continue forcing people to open their eyes.
Of course, there are others who prefer the first movie andcritique the spinofffor being a lazy rehash of the first film. While we get a different cast of characters and a different location of the world, the story is rather unoriginal. We get very little clues about the creatures, so we still don’t know what they are or why seeing them makes people commit suicide.
It ends up being the same survival story, but this time with a cult thrown in. Sebastian breaks free of his hypnosis when he bonds with a young girl who reminds him of his own daughter and in doing so helps the girl and the woman looking after her make it to a safe place. Overall, the story is quite repetitive, which takes away from the eeriness of the movie. Instead, the film seems to bring more questions than answers and leaves us with unresolved mysteries and plot holes.
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Was the Spinoff Worth the Wait, or Even a Watch?
The question then becomes, was the spinoff worth the wait? The production of a sequel wasn’t widely advertised and flew under the radar until its release. But if anyone was looking for answers in a sequel, this wasn’t it. Instead, the spinoff serves as more of an international expansion of a successful film.
The goal was for Netflix toappeal to a more global audienceand, in doing so seemed to recycle much of the story from the first film, which we would argue gaveBird Box Barcelonaless suspense and thrill. Although they attempted to give the characters higher stakes with the presence of the creature and the cult, the cult wasn’t much of a threat until the very end of the film when Sebastian finally broke free of his hypnosis.
Then there was the question of how certain people had the ability to see and not kill themselves, which was never answered or resolved. This leaves us all with more questions than answers by the end of the film. There ispotential to expand upon the movieand create a sequel that might answer some of these questions, like the ending of the movie teases, but whether this will happen or not, we don’t know.
All in all, we would say that the film while it was a well done production, doesn’t quite live up to the original and therefore may not be worth the watch. And whether or not it achieved its goal for Netflix in reaching a more global audience, we have yet to find out.
