Speak Now Storyteller

Summary: Anyone can survive five nights. This time, there will be no second chances.

I will try to not spoil anything or much in this review. I don’t play the games, never have (never will) but I’ve been in the “fandom” since it started, mostly by watching Let’s Plays (Markiplier) and being invested in the story. I didn’t review the first movie, I will later but I ultimately found it boring but the story had potential. Even though I am annoyed that they’re basically telling their own story when I think they could have just taken the story from the game and actually told that in a canon way since there’s so many details that aren’t confirmed… which is so annoying to me.

I’ve been working on this review for a while lol, it’s one of those movies where my thoughts have been all over the place, especially with trying to not spoil.

Pros:

The Opening Sequence. This was absolutely the best part of the movie, oh my goodness. I was quite impressed because I thought it was tension filled, terrifying and emotional. We realize we’re at a different Freddy’s location, where there’s a ton to do. It was exciting seeing a fully operational Freddy’s filled with kids, parties and parents. We meet Charlotte who feels separate from a lot of kids her age, even though she’s there at a birthday party with her friend Vanessa. While there, we learn that she has an emotional attachment to the Marionette who acts a conductor to the Toy Animatronics when they perform on stage. Vanessa convinces her to come back for cake and then Charlotte witnesses something suspicious. I won’t go further as to not spoil the more important details, but I think Audrey Lynn Marie (Charlotte) is fantastic in this scene, she’s truly a standout performance in this movie. Miriam Spumpkin (young Vanessa) is also great in this scene. Honestly, if the rest of the movie was at this quality, it would have been so much better.

Elizabeth Lail as Vanessa Afton. I thought she was fine in the first movie, but she really shines here because this movie is really about her. We see her nightmares about what happened with Charlotte, she takes Mike’s advice and practices a little dream theory to confront the ghost of her father as she’s being haunted by him everywhere. She’s clearly very emotionally disturbed and is struggling to move forward with her life. However, Vanessa has a lot of secrets which does affect her relationship with Mike. I think Vanessa is an interesting character and while I hate her inclusion in this universe because of what it means for the story, Elizabeth Lail is so good in this role in this movie. She does such a great job with her emotional reactions and her subtle acting when necessary. Obviously with this type of a movie, it’s over the top so sometimes things are over the top, but I think she manages to not make her acting come off silly. She’s definitely the best actor in the movie this go around (with Charlotte right behind her). 

The Animatronics. Once again, the Jim Hensen’s Creature Shop has created the animatronics for this film and they’re so good. I thought they were great in the first one but there are so many animatronic puppets in this movie from the Withereds, to the Toys, the Marionette and another set we see during the climax. The toys look fantastic, which is why it’s annoying we didn’t get to see them in action more. The puppet is scary already and I think it’s super scary in the movie, especially with what they’ve done with it.

It’s Fun! I’m not gonna lie, I at least had a good time watching the movie. All of the easter eggs from the games were fun to catch. Some of the humor actually lands, like when Mike asks, “who is the idiot who designed this office?” since it doesn’t have a door. There are a lot of jump scares, some of them will get you just because they’re jump scares but they’re not “scary”. I think they heard people say the first one wasn’t scary, so they wanted to rectify that with this one. They did that for sure but it’s not actually scary. It could be to a teenager or a child though. But outside of that, while there are too many jump scares, I do think what the animatronics were doing was fun to watch. It’s not as “serious” as the first one came off which I think works in its favor.

Fan Service. I’m sure fans of the series will either enjoy this movie, or they will be upset (like me) with how much they’ve deviated from a good enough pre-existing story that could have been solidified with the movie, but whatever. But there’s a lot of fan-service that I know fans will be excited to catch. I caught a lot of things, like noticing clothing like the Marionette indicating what could happen with that character. Or a super surprising cameo from another popular animatronic. If anything, that’s fun to watch the movie for, to see how the filmmakers were determined to make references that fans could salivate over. 

Cons:

The Story. In this movie, it’s a couple of years after the events of the first and Mike really wants to move on, he and Vanessa seem to kind of be getting to a romantic point, or that’s the idea but she’s losing it by seeing ghosts of William Afton everywhere. Meanwhile, Abby is lonely and wants to find her animatronic friends again and gets swept up by the Toy animatronics, particularly Toy Chica. Along those lines, the Marionette is around and scaring people with its own interest. I think there’s potential in this story but it’s a mess and relies too much on fan-service to carry the interest. I don’t like the motivations of the film’s main antagonist, I think there was potential, but it wasn’t fleshed out enough. Scott Cawthon who was the sole writer this time around, just isn’t a good storyteller. He has great ideas and great ways for things to connect, after all, what he’s created is amazing, but adapting it into a palatable (and good) movie isn’t easy. Some of the dialogue is just overall silly, characters make silly choices, moments don’t feel earned or they’re extremely rushed. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying. Character relationships aren’t explored well enough. Moments that are hyped up, like Faz Fest wasn’t explored the way it could/should have. Mike visits Skeet Ulrich’s character (who was great in his short amount of screen time) and gets a bit of information but he doesn’t explain a lot either. It’s annoying how so much happens but nothing at all. This movie clearly is a “part 2” that is setting up a part 3. I could gripe a lot more, but I won’t because spoilers. Lastly, we didn’t spend enough time in the location, this is FIVE NIGHTS and we were barely there! This is extremely annoying to me.

Everyone is stupid or doesn’t listen. I was so annoyed with everyone in the movie for either being stupid or not listening to what’s being said around them. Or not paying attention! Or they have no urgency. Those Ghostbuster kids go to the original Freddy’s location and one of them falls in the water but instead of climbing out of it, he just stands there staring. Get out?? But for real, Mike is the biggest culprit of this “not listening” epidemic in this movie. He doesn’t listen or pay attention to what Abby says or does when it’s important. The biggest moment where this happened is when Vanessa tries to tell him what Abby told her about interacting with the animatronics again and he cuts her off, doesn’t listen and when things happen, he finally gets on board. It was so annoying. It happens A LOT. I think the Schmidts are just dumb because Abby, I know she’s a kid, but the fact that she thinks Chica suddenly has a new body and just blindly follows along is insane. I need her to be a bit more suspicious. Then Vanessa being shocked that Mike was upset with her because she just wouldn’t be truthful with what she knows about Freddys and her father’s past? Like come on, why are you surprised by this? Everyone, all around, just dumb.

Animatronic Usage. Toy Chica gets a lot of use in the movie, which is fine with who they got to voice her (who wasn’t bad at all) but I’m sure they did that to pay for getting this actress. Plus, with Abby’s connection to FNAF 1 Chica (which honestly I don’t remember her specifically being her favorite but sure), it made sense that it would be Toy Chica we see more of. But I think not having Toy Freddy around more is a misstep, same with Toy Bonnie, who I know people hate the most in the games but I feel like we could have seen them more. Same with Mangle. I think they all look too good to not be seen more than we got to see them.

Subpar Acting. Unfortunately, I think the acting from our previous two leads is bad here. Josh Hutcherson (Mike) seems like he’s not present and I thought Piper Rubio (Abby) wasn’t very good in the first movie, but I usually try to give kids a chance, but I can’t ignore it this time around. She’s 11 but she comes off so much younger and I blame her acting, her writing and the direction for this. I like Josh Hutcherson, I grew up watching him, we’re the same age and I think he’s always been a great actor, and I thought he was good in the first one, but here he seems so bored. I bet a big part of that is how they decided to tell this story, his character almost doesn’t need to be here anymore. He was our stand-in for Michael Afton in the first movie, and they really seemed to move away from that. Outside of a few moments, he just seemed really bored and uninterested. He has great chemistry with Elizabeth Lail and Piper Rubio but since the movie didn’t seem to know what to do with him, Josh seemed to respond in kind with mediocre acting.

Insane Pacing. This movie isn’t that much shorter than the first movie and while the first was slow and boring, this is so fast and rushed. We have such a great opening sequence that should have set the tone for the rest of the movie but then it just speeds through everything. Mike and Vanessa’s relationship needed more, they have good chemistry and I think there could have been some interesting and strong moments between them, but we just speed right by them. Mike’s scene with Skeet Ulrich was great but it’s barely 5 minutes and I think we could have spent a bit more time with him. We should have been Abby interacting with the other Toy animatronics and not just Chica. Faz Fest was hyped up but we didn’t spend any time there. The main antagonist was interesting as a concept, but we could barely sit with anything that really happened here because we’re flying through the story. We really needed another 10 minutes maybe or for the time to be better allocated. 

Overall, this movie was a bad mess. It was a fun, bad mess but a mess, nonetheless which is why the rating will be what it will be. Elizabeth Lail was the best actor by far in the movie, with Skeet Ulrich in his short screen time and Audrey Lynn Marie being standouts respectively. The movie is fun overall, once things get going, the pace goes crazy and you’re bombarded with jump scares, but it keeps the story from being coherent. Characters are dumb and don’t listen when things can easily be avoided or understood earlier if they just pay attention and communicate. There’s so much potential because I know what the story could be and since it wasn’t that it just annoys me. I’m along for the ride because of the world these movies come from, but I think they could be so much better than they are. But I’m sure teenagers and kids who are fans of the games will really enjoy this, but I think everyone deserves better. 

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this review, please give a like and consider subscribing! Also, check out my YouTube channel!

Spoilers Below this Line – Read at your OWN RISK!

As an adaptation. I’m annoyed at the fact that Mike Schmidt was our stand-in for Michael Afton and the security guard from the previous movies and wasn’t actually Michael Afton and now he CAN’T be Michael Afton because Michael Afton exists in this movie, as a creepy weirdo who wants to follow in his father’s footsteps (played by Freddy Carter, who was at least interesting) and has lured people, including McKenna Grace and her team to the OG location to be killed or possessed. We don’t see him until this scene, and we don’t see him again until the very end where he reveals himself and that he’s Vanessa’s brother, another secret she’s kept from Mike. I was annoyed by this because the theory that Michael has been going around trying to find William and release the kids’ souls is more compelling and interesting to me. I felt like Josh Hutcherson could have been great in this kind of role, especially since Abby = Baby and it could have worked but what they decided to do is whack to me. I hate that Vanessa exists this close to these characters considering how she’s not really a factor until after the main Afton storyline is finished and while I don’t mind Vanessa overall, I just don’t like the story they’ve decided to tell and maybe I would if it was written better and the characters were better handled. Now that there are two Mikes and I’m sure Michael is going to try and kill Mike since he’s effectively the reason why William died, plus Vanessa gets possessed by the Marionette at the end, there’s potential for good emotional stuff in the third movie but if we’re so focused on entertaining the kids and not telling a compelling story then what’s the point?

Also, I always liked the idea that while the Marionette/Puppet is a grey character, her intentions are good because Charlie just always wanted to protect the other kids in the way she wasn’t protected. I don’t like turning her into a villain and it wasn’t even handled well. I understand the idea of her being upset at the parents for not helping her and she wants to get them back for ignoring her and I don’t think it’s horrible idea and she’s a child, but I feel like there’s nuance missing from this. 

But I think that’s all I have to say about this right now!