I don’t remember the original Bird Box in great detail… it came out in 2018! Can you imagine? Five years earlier (dear god… time is the crucible in which we burn). I remember it being alright… lot of buzz around it but the movie was basically just a vehicle for Sandra Bullock to play an unlikable character. But I didn’t think we’d get this sequel… Bird Box: Gary, Indiana… wait… double-checking… Bird Box: Antwerp. No? Bird Box: Eugene, Oregon?

Ok, the bit is over.

Bird Box: Barcelona picks up with an all new cast in post-apocalypse Barcelona where the conveniently and budget-friendly invisible whatsits have wiped out most of the population. We follow a survivor and his daughter as they seek sanctuary with a new set of survivors.

This film lacks the star-power of a Sandra Bullock. It does co-star Georgina Campbell who made a big splash (in my brain) with Barbarian earlier this year. But everyone else is unfamiliar to me… maybe they are HUGE in Spain? They all do a good job though, especially the lead Mario Casas who has to do some interesting heavy lifting.

While the details of this invisible whatsit invasion remain the same, this time they give us a different flavor of off-putting protagonist. Mario Casas is not playing a particularly nice guy and his turns make the film pretty interesting. He creates a double layer of suspense any time the invisible whatsits show up.

The rest of the movie is very solid. Quite a bit better than the first movie. It’s more suspenseful, more thrilling, and maybe even scarier. It moves at a faster pace and avoided some of the down-time and waiting in dark rooms that plagued Bullock’s movie. Plus we get some cool flashbacks to when things started going bad across Europe that generates some nice apocalyptic chaos.

It helps that the budget seems improved and we spend more time in the ruined city and not wandering around the woods. The remains of Barcelona look great… though I’m taking their word it IS Barcelona (the only thing I know about Barcelona were those Olympics they held… dear god… thirty-one years ago (time is the crucible in which were burn)).

I liked this movie a surprising amount… especially given that I figured it’d be a quick cash-grab afterthought. A sequel to something that we’ve all kind of forgotten about. But it worked for me… and I hope it works for others (though I suspect the automatic hate for Netflix originals might be the real horror of this movie).

Score: 84