The question 'Did we REALLY need this!?' almost always crops up in discourse around movie sequels. and pound for pound, I tend to find that more often than not, the folks who say stuff like that consistently dont fully understand that a sequel can exist simply to expand on the universe the original film created, and to give the audience the time to reconnect with much loved characters one more time. As a culture we dont need to be so militant about whether sequels should exist or not. For people who care, theres the option to explore the world of these characters and scenarios deeper…for those who dont…Well, as Jay Sherman so eloquently put it 'If the movie stinks, just dont go!'.
Im pretty liberal on sequels, I think if people want to see it, why not indulge them…That being said, as I got to the end of 'The Nun II', much like the characters in the movie, I found my belief in my own ethics and morals questioned violently.
What was the point of this movie? what does it REALLY add to this universe? a few flecks of explanation and clarification that could have just as easily been summed up in a post credit scene tacked on to ANY of the other conjuring movies would have sufficed…and yet here I am, an hour and 15 minutes short changed and very much less the wiser.
The plot of 'The Nun II' picks up about 4-5 years after the events of the first 'Nun' film. Father Burke is dead, Sister Irene has essentially gone into hiding in a convent in Italy to avoid being spotlit as having consumed the blood of Christ, and Frenchy is backpacking across Europe (as per the end of the last film).
However, news reaches the broader church that a tremendous evil that LOOKS like the events that occured during 'The Nun' are again happening across various locations in Europe. And so; Sister Irene is VERY reluctantly pulled out of servitude to the lord, to track down the evil using her special gifts, and hopefully to put it to rest once and for all.
Aided by nun in training 'Debra' the pair head to the last know instance of the evil, and quickly piece together that Frenchy is in fact carrying the last vestages of the Demon Nun within him, causing travesties whereever he goes…Something something 'ANOTHER hidden relic' something someting 'Big scary goat demon' something something 'the power of love'…THE NUN 2!
If I had to 'quick caption' this film, it felt like an 'OVA' to an already concluded series, that takes place somewhere in the middle of the pack. Im sure that if you choose to watch all the Conjuring movies in 'timeline' order, rather than 'release' order, and that you havent seen any of the other films before catching this one chronologically, you'll find it amusing and intreaguing…But at this point im 8 films deep into this series, I have 1 more entry to go, and the stakes with this film could not BE any lower if they tried.
For a starters, going in you already know which cast members survive, because the films made a point of showing you all of these details in the other 'Conjuring' films that take place after this one. Now…with prequels I always say 'its not the certainties, its the journey to the destination' thats the fun of them…But 'The Nun 2' doesnt really have a destination, the first film essentially made it clear what the end point of the events of these movies was building to…So this film feels less like an 'intreaguing' journey, and more like the first film ended…and the producers just forgot to yell 'cut' at some point.
The film HEAVILY meanders on the point of tracking down Frenchy, when we as the audience already know how his plot ends, the journey isnt investable because what do we gain from another outing where 'oooh! people might die!' except, they wont. because the first film made a point of saying they wont.
You might think, 'oh! well, at least the characters are engaging!' to which I say, 'Did you SEE 'The Nun'?!' NON of the cast are engaging, interesting or complex enough to hold my interest, non of them have anything really in the name of depth, or intreague…I dont really care what happens to these characters after this film…I barely cared what happened to the characters after the FIRST film definitively concluded things…so why would I want MORE of that?!
What we in essence have here is a pointless entry into the franchise, that retreads similar ground to the first 'Nun' film, just with a slightly larger remit of potentially impacted people, where we're relic hunting once again, and the CGI is being leaned on EVEN MORE to try and plug the gap in a plot that didnt need to happen, but is being willed into existence because Hollywood is on fire, doesnt know when to stop, and wont gamble on anything outside of the safest of safe bets when it comes to franchises.
I didnt hate this movie, I was bored by it. This could have been a short film to promote the next 'Conjuring' movie, and it probably would have been 10 times more impactful and a fraction of the cost of what this movie ACTUALLY cost. I wont spoil the full details of whats 'revealed' in this film, because I appreciate some folks WILL want to still check this one out. but i'd say for the time investment, the amount of detail this adds to the wider 'Conjuring' universe, you might as well just google it, you'll take back 90 minutes and a LOT of finger drumming waiting for it to be over.
The scripts overly generic, crawls at 100+ minutes, has uninteresting characters returning for no real reason, to do things that dont really matter, that benefit noone…I wish I could be nicer about this one, its not an unwatchable film. But if ever there was a film you could put on in the background, check in every 20 minutes and STILL know what was happening…its this one.
An overreliance on actual jumpscares undercuts the sinister nature of the first film, the largely stolen aesthetics of Italian horror and Giallo are gone…but replacing them is…well, basically nothing.
It being a studio picture, it meets its obligations on the barest of minimum levels, the direction is competent and nothing more, the cine is sturdy, but in the same way a shipping box is sturdy. it doesnt make it interesting, engaging or anything other than 'shot for function and form'. The soundtracks generic even for the Conjuring series, the cast give the barest of bare minimums because I believe even they were internally asking 'whats the point of this?'…
Its competent enough a work that I cant actively say I hated it, but it gives SO little, SO half heartedly that im just mistified in this day and age of financial hardship how something SO throwaway could have ever been greenlit. I cant even really say im glad I watched it truthfully. If it were on while I was doing other things, I wouldnt switch it off (which is more than I can say for 'Annabelle') But I absolutely cant recommend this, and the way the film is set up, it makes it one of the only entries in this franchise that you can easily skip and not miss a single thing in the broader picture that they've been painting since 2013.
GOD this film was dull. Avoid.
