Movie: Birdbox Barcelona
Production Companies: Nostromo Pictures, Chris Morgan Productions, Dylan Clark Productions
Directors: David Pastor, Alex Pastor
Producers: Dylan Clark, Nuria Valls, Adrian Guerra, Chris Morgan, Ryan Lewis, Josh Malerman
Scriptwriters: David Pastor, Alex Pastor
Main Cast: Mario Casas, Naila Schuberth, Georgina Campbell, Diego Calva
Release Date: July 14th 2023
Running Time: 112 minutes
Certificate: 15
Introduction
Ah yes it’s the most eagerly anticipated film of this month…. Birdbox Barcelona. What were you expecting me to say? Barbie? Anyway, as to be expected for a film about people being blind you don’t need 20/20 vision to see how rubbish it is. Whether it’s the writing, lack of building on established lore or just the subpar performances Birdbox Barcelona may have killed off the franchise for good. Shame it never really took flight in the first place….
Synopsis
As briefly alluded to in the introduction, Birdbox Barcelona is a spinoff from the 2018 film, Birdbox, and follows a different cast of characters in Barcelona. The main character, Sebastian (Casas), believes he is helping to save people by opening their eyes to the monsters which are never seen and are really underexplored but I digress. Anyway, when he meets a random German girl and some other underdeveloped side characters he decides to not keep murdering people because a vision of his dead daughter keeps telling him to. Now, are we sure the writers weren’t blinded by their own shoddy script because even by the standards of the first Bird Box this is pretty woeful.
Analysis
Mario Casas’s Performance in Bird Box Barcelona
BirdBox Barcelona is living proof that a decent premise can be utterly squandered by bad writing and acting. The idea of Sebastian believing he’s doing the work of God by showing people the aliens and releasing their souls could have been a great film about a morally conflicted dad doing what he thought was right. Instead, the film doesn’t really go fully in and just hints at the heights it could have reached. Also, it doesn’t help when some of the performances don’t come off like they could off. Case in point, Mario Casas as Sebastian.
And when your lead actor’s performance is more wooden at times than a Ent it really doesn’t help. Take when he randomly is revealed to speak German because reasons. Here, he barely registers any emotion despite the fact he may be able to reunite her with her mother. Surely, for a dad who lost his daughter he’d surely show more emotion to make sure it doesn’t happen. Honestly, the most memorable thing he does in the film is when he impales a priest into a flaming car. Damn, I guess that gives new meaning to hot wheels….
The Aliens in BirdBox Barcelona
Also, another huge problem with BirdBox Barcelona is the fact it ends up being quite boring to watch. This is really damning given the fact it’s a film about aliens which can make people kill themselves just by looking at them. So while I get why they decided to go with the Cloverfield approach of keeping the monster mostly hidden, the filmmakers also don’t reveal enough about them to keep the audience invested. Instead, they go down the route of trying to use the mystery to set up a sequel that will inevitably get conveniently Batgirl-ed when Netflix needs a cheap tax write off.
Also, it doesn’t help that even when we only ever see POV shots, which looks like a knockoff COD killcam with some terrible orange filter, which only frustrates you further as a little mystery is good but when you’re still hinting at what the monster is with no lore it gets boring very fast. On top of this, the film’s boredom is only emphasised further by how the script feels like it was CTRL + C’d with little innovation. And yes this can work for certain films, like the Meg, but here it elongates the film unnecessarily.
Summary
To summarise BirdBox Barcelona, this is a film with untapped potential which it never comes close to realising. But, you can’t spell untapped potential without man Birdbox Barcelona weirdly had untapped potential. Now I hope Netflix uses this time to realise nobody wanted a spinoff and nobody wants another sequel. How could they be so blind?
Overall Rating: 4/10 – Disappointing
Target Audience: 15+
Content Warning: Severe Violence and Gore, Mild Profanity, Severe Frightening and Intense Scenes
Recommendation: No
