There was always a risk with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. The original worked because it felt contained, almost scrappy, with its eat-the-rich satire unfolding inside a single deranged family estate. The sequel goes bigger. More characters, more mythology, more blood. Unsurprisingly, it’s both more entertaining and a little less sharp.
Where the first film’s genius lay in its claustrophobic simplicity, Here I Come sprawls outward in every direction. It can’t replicate the breathless novelty of the original, so it compensates by giving audiences more of everything. The kills are bigger, nastier and often more inventive, and the humour’s dialled up to match. At its best, it feels like the filmmakers are trying to outdo themselves scene by scene, with a kind of gleeful excess that suits the premise. There’s still that biting edge aimed at the ultra-wealthy, but it’s broader now, less surgical. Where the first film had a point to prove, this one seems more interested in having a good time proving it.
Samara Weaving remains the film’s most reliable engine. There’s a feral, almost unhinged energy to her performance that keeps things grounded even as the plot spirals into increasingly absurd territory. Her signature look from the original functions almost like a superhero suit here, and when it made its appearance at the media screening I attended in Cape Town recently, the room responded accordingly. Even when the script starts to wobble, she doesn’t.
The new cast additions are a genuine highlight. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy share a believable toxic sibling energy as a pair of villains who seem to have been training their whole lives for exactly this occasion. Gellar in particular relishes the opportunity to play somebody this magnificent and awful, all icy hauteur and barely disguised contempt. Then there’s David Cronenberg, of all people, turning up in a brief but wonderfully dour cameo that’s one of the film’s most quietly funny moments. Elijah Wood, deploying the specific brand of knowing weirdness he’s perfected in recent years, is also a welcome presence, even if the screenplay leans on him rather heavily to explain a mythology that’s grown almost unwieldy in its expansion.
The trouble is that Here I Come tries to be more than just fun. It reaches for emotional depth through a central relationship that never quite convinces, built on motivations that feel more like plot mechanics than genuine human feeling. That expansion of the wider world compounds the problem. Bringing in multiple rival families and a sprawling conspiracy adds scale, but it also makes the narrative feel cluttered at times. Characters come and go without leaving much of an impression, and the satire loses some of its sting in the noise. The film occasionally mistakes escalation for evolution, and it shows.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a louder, messier sequel that trades precision for scale. It doesn’t hit as hard as the original, but it’s still a bloody good time if you’re willing to go along for the ride.