If there is a promise that Fall 2: Deadline keep it up, it raises the bar. This does not mean Autumn was a simple, no-nonsense thriller. Rather, the Spierig brothers go beyond the nightmare of a single place stuck in the sky. Former director Scott Mann reunites with Jonathan Frank to write a sequel to Autumnof the saga by attaching itself to Shiloh Hunter’s little sister, and it gets even more violent from there. That’s not to say they fix the visual effects issues and stumbles of cackamamie storytelling, if you were hoping for a more refined version of hanging off high ledges and preposterous death falls.
Harriet Slater stars as Jax Hunter, who is still grieving the loss of his daredevil influencer brother after the now-infamous B-67 TV tower climbing incident. Jax sets up a meeting with Shiloh’s friend Luce (Arsema Thomas) to sell her sister’s salvaged truck, but Luce sees an opportunity while thumbing through Shiloh’s “Fuck It” list (a scrapbook of future climbing locations). Luce convinces Jax to accompany her on an illegal climb to the summit of Mount Kwan in Thailand to honor Shiloh, where, in the end, you encounter a dragon statue that devours your fears. So they ride up behind non-native guide Jon (Tom Brittney), reaching a thousand-mile-high plank walk, but it’s on the rickety wooden planks planted in the stone walls of Mount Kwan that an earthquake strands Jax and Luce, tethered to a rusty chain as their only measure of safety.
In simpler terms: little sister Scardycat attempts to conquer her demons by pulling off exactly the type of extreme stunt that killed the person she’s honoring.
It’s all in the style of Autumnin which the red flags of Jax and Luce’s journey are laid bare. Tourists are not supposed to climb in July because the weather is too dangerous; camera shots zoom in on the decrepit nature of loose steel bars and loosened bolts; The fentanyl smugglers die in an introduction while attempting the same path as Jax and Luce. It’s not the draw: we know Jax and Luce will find themselves stuck in the clouds. It’s about what happens next, including absurd gymnastics without harnesses, secret histories, Jon’s disappearance or death, and the girls’ ability to stand (or sleep) on a two-plank-wide surface without impairment. If you thought Autumn it was ridiculous, Fall 2: Deadline leans even further into the “who cares” of survival details, which is both entertaining and outrageous (pejorative).
This is where my problems lie with Fall 2: Deadlinewhich I find hard to engage in like pure popcorn excitement. The pieces of the story come together to culminate in the spectacle that ensues, trapped on a ledge, with a base more unstable than what’s on screen. Jax and Luce use a secret password to meet Jon, a shady businessman hiding in the back room of a bar, and don’t think twice about the predicament? After an earthquake split Jon and the girls, he just… left? Nothing to see here, will you continue? Then there are Jax and Luce, who seem quite comfortable with their forced accommodation for the moment, untroubled by the elements or fatigue. That’s not to say that some games aren’t worth checking out, as the girls show some ingenuity as they attempt to lasso a distant radio or aim laser pointers at disgruntled pool players at the aforementioned drinking establishment. But it’s not A lonely place die or Cliffhangerboth of which handle unthinkable escalation scenarios much better.
Alas, Peter and Michael Spierig work with the same questionable visual effects that weaken Autumn. When the camera is able to focus closely on the climbers, framing small sections of wooden walkways as Jax, Luce, and Jon move, the illusion of height is maintained. The farther away cinematographer Andrew Strahorn gets, the more shaky the green-screen mixing and digital touches become. As someone who suffers from sincere feelings of vertigo (The Rock’s Skyscraper my palms were sweaty), I never felt overwhelmed by Jax and Luce’s blurry gazes from their perch. The practical Thailand settings all look good, but when the film tries to build up Mount Kwan and its cloud-piercing height – or showcase more distant landscapes – the magic fades. There is a lack of sharpness in the VFX backgrounds during the most adrenaline-charged scenes; a duplication of problems in Autumn.
Slater and Thomas are hampered by their character designs in a story that relies on emotional difficulties because, apparently, “fall and you die” wasn’t dramatic enough. Interactions can feel hollow and far-fetched, given how many traumas are discussed and barely earned. The questions pile up as Jax blindly follows a stranger, and the duo ignores fairly standard warnings, only for an absurd third act that piles on even more last-minute speedrun-level developments. Neither Slater nor Thomas calibrate their playing for the horrific event at hand, which skews any sense of tonal balance.
Fall 2: Deadline is a faithful sequel which largely retains the positive and negative points of Autumnwhile taking a considerable step forward. We haven’t heard from the Spierigs since 2018 Winchesterso it’s nice to review their credit, and you can see some aspects of Fall 2: Deadline which seems more cinematic. Unfortunately, Mann and Frank’s script lays an unstable foundation that continues to zigzag in a way that leaves the experience a little too shaky. Frankly, no one in the production learned anything from the mistakes of the original film. At least that makes things easy? Wherever you landed Autumnthat’s probably where you’ll land here too.
Movie rating: 2.5/5
