WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON FALL 2?
The 2022 movie Fall, a decently suspenseful if largely unremarkable survival thriller, pretty much came and went at the time, grossing a strong $22 million next to a $3 million budget and gaining sturdy critical reviews as well. But then, once it dropped on Netflix, viewership spiked amid viral word-of-mouth and it became an international mini-phenomenon, enough to where a sequel was formidably commissioned.
That’s really the only valid reason why Fall 2 – or Fall 2: Deadpoint, as it’s known elsewhere for some reason, even though the phrase is never uttered once throughout the entire movie – exists in the first place. The first film, as standard as it was, felt comfortably self-contained with complete character arcs and a reasonable solution to the main predicament, whereas a sequel would just be upping the ante because, well, it’s a sequel. But while Fall 2 is definitely a case of “bigger is better” with an overwhelming emphasis on the former, the film isn’t without its moments of heart-racing suspense, even if they’re almost instantly nullified by a bout of pure ridiculousness.
Set shortly after the events of the first film, we meet Jax (Harriet Slater), the younger sister of social media daredevil Shiloh Hunter (Virginia Gardner) who lost her life during an ill-fated climb up that impossibly high radio broadcasting tower in the middle of the desert. Jax is in full grieving mode, but soon is convinced by Shiloh’s friend Luce (Arsema Thomas) to honour her sister’s memory by doing exactly what she would do: finding the next big impossible feat to conquer, in this case heading to a remote Thai island and embarking on an illegal, not to mention hugely dangerous, 3,000-feet high plank walk across a mountain. Needless to say, the girls – along with their guide Jon (Tom Brittney) – quickly find themselves in a spot of bother when a rock avalanche destroys the surrounding planks and leaves them stranded on the cliffside, with next to no way of contacting outside forces for help and with time running out before they succumb to the mountain’s many perils.
The film is essentially an XXL-sized version of the first movie, because while it doesn’t exactly pull a Hangover Part II – which is to say, rehashing its predecessor but now set in Thailand – the general formula remains in place with an expanded scope and not that much extra depth. That thin broadcasting tower from before? Now it’s a giant mountain… and that’s it. Those two potential survivors from before? Now there’s three of them, one of whom just comes and goes… and that’s it. Fall 2 is filled with loads of added extras like these, and it does avoid repeating certain twists (even though there are a few times when you’re genuinely worried that it’s going to pull that exact turn again), but ultimately they make little difference to the overall experience since the core concept is unchanged and thus keeps the movie stuck in its own familiar cycle, no matter how much bigger it may seem on the surface.
In fairness, directors Michael and Peter Spierig (replacing original writer-director Scott Mann, who still provides the screenplay alongside co-writer Jonathan Frank) are capable of delivering the palm-sweating goods as and when required. After a somewhat rough first act with fractured editing that makes it feel like the opening “previously on…” montage of a TV episode, the film finds its groove when we begin the ascent up this mountain, with effects that aren’t entirely convincing but manage to work enough to give you that sense of vertigo as we look down upon the widespread greenery of the surrounding wildlife. There are also sequences where the directors take firm advantage of the fact that there is practically no safety net surrounding these characters, including one where the characters essentially have to swing across a series of loose poles like monkey bars (a heavily telegraphed notion, one of many things that make the movie rather predictable) in order to retrieve a valuable item, and it’s rather intense as you can feel the bottomless pit beneath them which they could fall into at any given moment.
But while it’s fine for a few brief thrills, Fall 2 never quite justifies its existence outside of capitalising on its predecessor’s popularity. You can tell that the filmmakers are trying to give their film as fresh a vibe as possible, even factoring in a subplot about local drug smugglers to give the film and its characters a greater sense of threat instead of just the height at which they’re at, but it amounts to nothing that’s better than “okay” since it’s just taking you through all the usual loops under a slightly different set of circumstances. That also doesn’t factor in how there are some reveals about certain characters which do require a lot of suspension of disbelief, even for a film of this concept, since they seem to have been added in due to the fact that being trapped 3,000 feet in the air on the side of a mountain apparently wasn’t challenging or mentally overwhelming enough. The acting just about sells it, though there are one or two pretty bad lines of dialogue that no actor can deliver without realising how trite they are.
If you enjoyed the first movie then it stands to reason you’ll enjoy this one as well, because they’re more or less variations of the same premise with this one being the lesser of the two, for its lack of depth in the plot and characters makes all the extra add-ons feel needless. Bigger isn’t always better, and that certainly applies to the Fall franchise, a lesson they probably won’t learn for next time, if the final sequel-baiting scene is any indication.
