‘Bird Box: Barcelona’ (2023) Review: False Prophets and Dwindling Sequels
David Pastor and Àlex Pastor’s Bird Box: Barcelona is an expansion of Susanne Bier’s 2018 Netflix smash hit, Bird Box. Unlike the previous instalment, there is no Sandra Bullock, no caged birds, but plenty of blindfolds. Bullock played a single mom of two children trying to navigate the post-apocalyptic world where an unknown origin attacks people and causes them to do bodily harm to themselves. The only rule is that, under any circumstances, they should never remove the blindfold. In the sequel, the mysterious force begins in Eastern Europe and follows a similar theme of observing the good in humanity.
At the centre of this story is a father, Sebastián (Mario Casas), desperately protecting his daughter, Anna (Alejandra Howard), from blind robbers and evil entities that put her in harm’s way. As they walk through the ruined streets of Barcelona, Sebastián meets a group of people and asks for their help. While Anna hides from them, they invite Sebastián into their temporary home to hide from the mysterious being. In the survivor community, a blind man willingly scarred his eyes to stop a group of self-righteous people from killing him. They believe they are God’s chosen crusaders because they are unaffected by the creature’s powers. Sebastián listens to them. But what if Sebastián is not a “good person”?
Sebastián has a plan that reveals his true intentions to kill them. Sebastián believes he is the Shepherd that will guide them to “the miracle” by opening their eyes and seeing the divine light. When he sacrifices the group of survivors, he moves on to the next community. Sebastián gets accepted into a group that lives in a bomb shelter. There, he meets Claire (Georgina Campbell, Barbarian), Octavio (Diego Calva, Babylon), Rafa (Patrick Criado), a German girl, Sofia (Naila Schuberth), and an older couple. Sebastián and the group travel to a refuge over the mountains, Montjuïc Castle, which is a 17th-century fortress only accessible through cable cars. While otherworldly forces threaten their lives, they face other problems in their journey.
A lot is going on in Bird Box: Barcelona. One of the main issues with this movie is that expositions never seem to end, even until the last act. Unlike the previous film, the character’s goals are to survive the entity and keep away from it. The only antagonistic character is the invisible force that forces people to hurt themselves and commit suicide. But this movie adds another component: Sebastián and other God’s chosen crusaders can actually “see” it. So, they think they are the sign of God helping others see the light. It focuses on the faux-religious angle, which somehow dominates the narrative but, ultimately, adds nothing and falls flat.
While Bird Box succeeded in telling a story that defied the unknown, its sequel isn’t compelling enough. Brier’s movie is intense and has emotional moments between a mother’s desperate attempts to keep her children alive. While Bird Box: Barcelona shares the same elements, many plot details pile on. It’s hard to find a decent moment of clarity between the characters. The movie is about grief, yet, the story doesn’t have the runtime to explore these emotional moments.
Bird Box: Barcelona sets up the potential to explore the story further, but is it going to be successful? With Hollywood greenlighting sequels and reboots of movies and television series that have already been released for almost a decade, content is abundant. Over the last couple of years, Netflix has invested a lot of money to produce and stream original series and blockbuster movies. But if these ideas don’t have a creative flair that provides cinematic elements, what will audiences want to watch? That’s the problem with Bird Box: Barcelona. It doesn’t have the story or narrative creativity to leave an impression. The movie could have spent time observing the themes around grief and what it does to someone but, instead, focuses on the faux-religious angle that takes away the emotional moments to reach its full potential.
Bird Box: Barcelona will stream on July 14th on Netflix.
