Certificate: 15
Running Time: 111 mins
UK Distributor: Netflix
WHO’S IN BIRD BOX BARCELONA?
Mario Casas, Alejandra Howard, Georgina Campbell, Naila Schuberth, Diego Calva, Lola Dueñas, Patrick Criado, Gonzalo de Castro, Michelle Jenner, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Celia Freijeiro
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Álex Pastor and David Pastor (directors, writers), Dylan Clark, Adrián Guerra, Chris Morgan and Núria Valls (producers), Zeltia Montes (composer), Daniel Aranyó (cinematographer), Luis de la Madrid and Martí Roca (editors)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
In Barcelona, a group of survivors must try and avoid mysterious creatures that kill anyone who sees them…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BIRD BOX BARCELONA?
After the likes of Squid Game, Bridgerton, Wednesday and other post-pandemic Netflix properties became massive cultural hits in a short amount of time, it’s easy to forget that the streamer had a massive phenomenon on their hands well before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Bird Box, released onto the streamer in late 2018, not only acquired more than 280 million viewing hours, earning it a space among the most-watched movies to ever hit the platform, but the central concept – wherein the planet is invaded by creatures that cause anyone who looks at them to immediately commit suicide – inspired an online trend known as the “Bird Box Challenge” where participants would blindfold themselves and make dangerous treks without being able to see anything.
And yet, for all of that, the movie itself isn’t very good. While Bird Box has its moments, it is largely redundant, especially in the wake of the far better and similarly plotted A Quiet Place from earlier that year, and fills itself out with slasher movie characters that come and go so quick that you hardly get a chance to really care about any of them. But hey, enough people watched it to convince Netflix to give the concept another go, and so we now have Bird Box Barcelona, a Spanish-language spin-off that is competently made, but in every other respect feels like an even less consequential movie than its mediocre predecessor.
Taking place in the Spanish city around the same time as the events in the first film – hence, no Sandra Bullock cameo to connect everything – the film initially follows Sebastián (Mario Casas) who, along with his young daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard), seems to have survived the invasion of the aforementioned creatures by wearing blacked-out goggles when outside. However, it soon transpires that the relationship between father and daughter is far from straightforward, and an early action sequence involving a stolen coach reveals a somewhat surprising twist that, at first, makes this particular hero’s journey a lot more interesting, and sets the scene for a much deeper character study in this post-apocalyptic world.
But then, Bird Box Barcelona falls right back into its old habits, many of which didn’t even work that well in the previous movie, and the film becomes a sadly unfocused mess. As before, multiple timelines factor in that shift to and from the beginning of this invasion, where civilians are either running for their lives or calmly killing themselves as soon as they make eye contact with the unseen creatures, while in the story’s present we are once again saddled with characters that are completely disposable and, at times, indistinguishable to each other. It also revisits a number of plot elements introduced in the first film, most notably how a select few people simply go insane upon seeing the creatures rather than kill themselves on the spot, and even some tense sequences of characters making their way through the street while blindfolded are mainly retreads of similar scenes from the earlier movie.
Admittedly, there is an effort on the part of director/writer brothers Álex and David Pastor to dive a bit deeper into some of the psychological effects that these creatures have on some people, which suggests more interesting stuff below the surface than what we actually get. It is also a decently made movie, with some chilling shots of lifeless bodies dangling from bridges or washed up on the beach being held onto for long enough to leave an impact, although at times there is some blatant CGI work that completely takes you out of the scene, such as some noticeable greenscreen and a few shots where they actually had to animate a coffee cup rolling around on the floor (because that’s something that ABSOLUTELY could not have been done practically, and for far less cost).
Much like its predecessor, Bird Box Barcelona is a bit of a slog to get to. There’s very little tension, because not only do you not really care that much about these characters but the thrills it tries to put out there have been done in far more effective ways (once again, I direct your attention to A Quiet Place instead), and it doesn’t have enough focus on the stuff that should be completely central to the main plot. The whole thing feels inconsequential, and blasé to a point where you start to picture more thrilling movies that have taken this type of concept to more intriguing places instead of putting your full attention into this one.
A blatant bit of sequel-baiting at the very end seems to suggest that there’s even more mediocrity to come in the Bird Box universe, but unless the next one actually decides to do something interesting with it, then I’d rather stay blindfolded.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Bird Box Barcelona is an underwhelming spin-off of the Netflix hit, which fails to explore the concept in many interesting ways, and instead settles for a less tense rehash of plot points and sequences from before.
