This apocalyptic movie lacks tension but is still worth seeing
It’s the end of the world as we know it. Again! Only this time, it’s not a virus that threatens to wipe us all out. Or a nuclear bomb. It’s a race of monsters that, according to one character in this new Netflix movie, might be “quantum beings” that have no shape of their own.
What are quantum beings? I have absolutely no idea, so apologies if I can’t go into detail about what these monsters might be. Unfortunately, you will be none the wiser after seeing Bird Box: Barcelona as the movie doesn’t reveal these creatures to us. In this sidequel to 2018’s Bird Box, which takes place around the same time as the events in that movie, we are frustratingly left in the dark (just like our blindfolded protagonists), as we don’t know who or what is attacking our planet. We don’t know what their intentions are either.
But here’s what we do know. When somebody has direct visual contact with these otherworldly beings, they are driven to suicide. This is evidenced by the bodies hanging from windows and the corpses that have been washed up on the beach. As Sebastián (Mario Casas) walks around the now-desolate streets of Barcelona, he plays witness to the atrocities that have taken place, and it’s mostly through his eyes that the events of the movie play out.
Sebastián isn’t alone. He is joined by his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard), although he is the only one that can see the girl. She exists only in his imagination and as the movie plays out, we discover the monsters have burrowed into his mind so they can control his actions using the memory of his dead daughter. Consequently, Sebastián isn’t quite the hero we expect him to be. This grief-stricken father believes the invading monsters are angels – they have manipulated his faith by taking the shape of what he wants to see – so rather than protecting the survivors of the monster attack, he actively leads them to their deaths as his ‘daughter’ has told him this is key to him reuniting with her in Heaven.
It’s this plot device that differentiates the movie from the Sandra-Bullock starring original. That one was pretty standard fare, telling a typical survival story of one family’s journey to a place of safety after the monsters appear on our planet. It had much in common with A Quiet Place and The Mist, two other movies about groups of people trying to survive an attack by creatures threatening the extinction of the human race. Bird Box: Barcelona is a more fascinating movie because of the morally conflicted main character but it’s not as tense as its predecessor, due to the absence of a relatable protagonist for us to care about.
While Bird Box isn’t necessarily the better movie, we still had a character in Sandra Bullock’s mother that we wanted to survive. But as Sebastián is less likeable than she was due to his sometimes diabolical actions, we have nobody to root for.
This isn’t to say Sebastián is the only survivor we spend time with. We also get to meet a woman named Claire and a young girl named Sofia, who are part of a group that Sebastián joins midway through the movie. They are more relatable than he is, mainly because they haven’t been driven to extremes by grief and religious fervour, but as the story doesn’t allow us time to fully get to know them, it’s difficult to become fully invested in their plight.
But while you might not be on the edge of your seat as the movie plays out, it might be that you’re unnerved by the events that play out on screen. The scenes of people jumping to their deaths from tall buildings and smashing their heads into car windscreens may send a shiver running down your spine, as they are truly horrific in nature. The fact that some of this happens in the background while the camera’s focus is elsewhere adds to the doom-laden atmosphere.
Directors David and Alex Pastor, who previously created end-of-the-world scenarios in The Last Days and Carriers, immerse us into the broken world that their characters are a part of, so while they don’t make us jump out of our seats, they still creep us out with their visual representation of a city torn apart by an unseen force.
As such, this is a movie that is worth seeing, especially if you enjoyed its predecessor. But while I can applaud the apocalyptic grimness and imaginative premise, I would have liked to have known a little bit more about the invisible creatures that have taken up residence on our planet. As alluded to earlier, they remain frustratingly abstract in nature although future movies within the Bird Box-connected universe might clue us into their identity and the reasons behind their invasion.
Despite the flaws in the narrative, Bird Box: Barcelona still grabs our attention. It’s a memorable movie due to some impactful death scenes, including one horrific moment at a train station. There is also an exciting chase scene that is a little out of place in a story like this one but which adds to our enjoyment of the movie all the same. It’s not as tense as A Quiet Place, Alien, or certain other sci-fi horror movies that rank alongside them, but there may be enough here to satisfy you if you’re a fan of the previous movie or the original novel by Josh Malerman on which 2018’s Bird Box was based.
Read More: Bird Box Barcelona Ending Explained
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Verdict - 6.5/10
6.5/10