I watched a bootleg recording last night because theatres are closed in Ontario so I might have missed a couple of things, but here are my general thoughts on the movie:
- generally I'm satisfied with what we got. I think that was a respectable sequel, and definitely better than screams 3 and 4. for me the series ranking goes 1 > 2 > 5 > 3 > 4.
- I thought that movie had the best ensemble of new characters since the original. that's not to say all of the characters were well developed, but I got more personality from them than I had from past instalments. mindy and richie in particular were great characters, and I'm happy mindy and chad are alive for a future movie. jenna ortega also gave the best performance out of the whole movie IMO. she is a great actress and is definitely going to have a big career.
- I'm extremely satisfied with how they handled the legacy characters. I thought dewey, sidney and gale were perfectly utilized. this was probably dewey's best showing to date. gale was funny and felt like her old self, and sidney had that IDGAF energy which you'd expect from her without having hogged too much of the screentime because it wasn't HER story after all.
- my GOD the characters of liv and vince were completely wasted. they could have been fantastic red herrings. I thought the movie should have played up the fact that they were still hooking up behind chad's back. the least they could have done was show them interact. vince got a very unceremonious death that was barely even acknowledged after the fact, and liv had no personality until her confrontation with mindy at amber's house by which point I thought it was obvious liv WASN'T the killer.
- I thought this movie had the most obvious killers out of the whole franchise. perhaps it's because I kept up with speculation that had amber and richie pegged as the killers following the release of the trailer, but I'm pretty sure I would have caught onto them being the killers had I gone in blind as well.
- also you're telling me that a girl who's literally 5'2'' is able to overpower DEWEY? it was obvious amber did most of the killing (did richie kill ANYONE?), even though ghostface looked extremely menacing. I had the same issue with scream 4. jill and charlie were both too short to realistically have been under the ghostface mask.
- I miss woodsboro from 1996. once again woodsboro felt like a crumbling midwestern town. I understand that hollywood no longer films in california, but the magic of scream (1996) was the setting. the rolling hills of santa rosa california, etc. the scenic shots in the first movie are magical and still give me goosebumps. I missed that aspect from both this movie and 4.
- this movie had A LOT of fan service but I appreciated all the easter eggs. I'm glad scream fans can rest knowing that kirby is alive, or that sidney is married to mark kincaid from scream 3 and has a family. the james/chelsea dead meat cameo was also a lot of fun.
- this movie nailed the comedic aspects that make the scream franchise special. it was funny without being OTT and camp like scream 3. all around clever dialogue, and enough meta-ness without being TOO meta.
- on the other hand I thought the plot was kind of weak, and probably the weakest of the whole franchise? the story was still better than halloween kills which literally had no plot, but I was still underwhelmed.
- I appreciate the brutality of ghostface, but most of the kills felt pigeonholed in for the sake of increasing the body count. I wish we got more of judy and wes before they got killed.
- I liked the ghostface reveals, and I don't have as much of a problem with the motives as other people. had we gotten another former family member people would have complained about the lack of originality. while I do think the motive was unrealistic and kind of ridiculous, I still thought it felt timely. though I wish they explained amber & richie's relationship more because clearly amber was groomed by richie online and I think it would have been interesting to acknowledge how amber was radicalized on the internet.
as a lifelong scream fan I'm definitely satisfied with what I got even though it was far from perfect. but it would have been hard to recreate anything close to the magic from the first two films. the fact that this movie is looking to be a box office hit unlike scream 4 is enough of a win for me.
