One line review: Enjoyable enough, but lacking all the elements that made the first film excellent, The Descent 2 feels like less of a sequel, and more like a Platinum Dunes remake of the first one.
SPOILERS FOR "THE DESCENT" (But not "The Descent: part 2") FOLLOW:
After the events of "The Decent", Sarah, the sole survivor, turns up with no memory of the last 2 days, covered in her friend's blood.
After a Tracker dog finds the cave system that the 6 women were exploring, the rescue operation (Which has until now been following the original expeditions "flight plan" to the wrong cave) is diverted, Along with local law-enforcement and Sarah herself, to try and find her "missing" friends.
Picking up where the first movie should have ended (incidentally, I would have ended with Sarah escaping the cave, The US version ended with Sarah escaping the cave, then setting off driving away and hallucinating Juno in her car, the UK version had the Juno in the car scene, then cut to Sarah, having never left the cave, hallucinating her daughter with the birthday cake and smiling, as we hear Crawlers drawing in on her) with Sarah walking out into the road and being picked up by a local yokel type.
Now, obviously, this time there would be no point hiding the monsters for an hour, this time we know why we're here, still, there seem no point removing the other things; the claustrophobia, the tension...
But that's exactly what's happened. Gone is the great directorial and DP work - this time the cave seems to spend most of it's time bathed in light, often from no real source, and when the source is defined - such as the flairs - there are no creepy reds and green this time out, nope, most of the time we're bated in so much yellow light it may as well be set above ground.
For the most part the genuine scares are gone; in their place, OTT gore. No one will get dragged into the darkness in this film; this is the type of film that likes to hack away at limbs and smash in heads.
At one point I thought that some of the gore seemed like it was trying to disgust as much as frighten... then we got to see a crawler empty its bowels and I was sure!
In yesterday's review of the first movie, I mentioned a sub-plot that was hinted, but not really full-on mentioned... it seems I was right about it, because here it IS addressed outright: Juno had an affair (or possibly was having an affair) with Sarah's husband.
Story wise this movie may be heavily rooted in the first, but in 'feel' the the only thing this has in common with it's predecessor is that it kept going for about 90 seconds after it should have ended. The actual ending is annoying at first, and the more you think about it, the less sense it makes! There are other plot holes too, such as the dog who finds the new cave entrance finding it by following Sarah's scent... to an entrance she never used!
All that being said, it was actually a pretty good 'popcorn' film, it has plenty going for it as a monster movie. It just sucks ass as a sequel to The Descent.
If you are a genuine horror fan (rather than someone who enjoyed The Descent, but generally isn't that into horror) you'll find plenty to like, despite its flaws. But DO NOT go in looking for a worthy successor to the first.
The inconsistencies annoyed the arse off me and Darren too, but we enjoyed it for what it was. Not a patch on the first one like you said, but a completely different kind of movie.
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