FNAF 2 doesn’t disappoint but doesn’t excite

Coming out two years after the first, the sequel in the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (FNaF) series follows the same characters as the first, a year after the events of the first film, however there is a new antagonist. At the beginning of the film, we receive a glimpse of a tragedy that occurred in the past, which is the main fuel for said antagonist, the Marionette.

One of the main characters, Abby Schmidt, formed a deep connection with the animatronics from the first movie and tried to seek them out despite her older brother, Mike Schmidt, attempting to guard her from going back to the building. When she arrives, she finds an old toy on the floor, the “FazTalker,” that would let someone talk to the animatronics, and takes it home in hopes to speak to her friends.

 While this is happening, the original Freddy’s building is being explored by a group of ghost hunting kids under the supervision of a different nightguard named Michael. We learn this was all a trap set by Michael. While exploring the basement one of the kids would discover the Marionette’s toybox, and as she does, she picks up and stops the music box in front of her and the Marionette awakens.

 Taking control of people and being the puppetmaster to the new animatronics, the Marionette would use the FazTalker to manipulate Abby into allowing the animatronics to roam out of the building so the Marionette can get revenge for the events that happened in that beginning flashback.

 Mike and the other main character, Vanessa, would stop this from happening and reactivate a music box to put the Marionette back to sleep. The original animatronics would also show up to defeat the new ones to save the main characters and Michael would be stopped from escaping by one of the side characters.

For the review part; this movie was worse than the first FNaF movie, and that movie was already not great. In terms of storytelling from the game, this film doesn’t accurately portray the events from the games that it is based on and seems more of a fan recreation, which is also how it felt watching the movie itself at times. 

There was a moment where they switched it to seem like it was being filmed on a handheld during the ghost hunting, but instead of leaving it as normal handheld filming quality, they edited it to make it extremely apparent. 

Aside from the nitpicking, I was also just not a fan of the actress who played Vanessa, Elizabeth Lail. I feel as though she was lackluster at times when she could’ve been more emotional or connected to the character.

 There was also a random event that happened at the end, solely so Michael could disappear and possibly make the story for a third movie. Overall, I’d give the film at most 2.5 stars out of 5. It wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it wasn’t great.