I Was Ready To Be Disappointed, But I’m Not

By C. Rommial Butler

Though his part is small, the best thing about Ready or Not 2 is Elijah Wood as the devil’s lawyer.

But there’s a lot to like, not least of which is how well they managed to transition into a sequel at all.

Expanding on the theme of a cabal of rich Satanists that run the world, the writers took what has become a cliché plot device and twisted it into a satisfying and gratifying romp.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come succeeds as action, horror, and comedy.

The only weak point is the sister-bickering.

(What is sister-bickering? Well, forgive me for mansplaining, but this is the trope where two female protagonists who have a strained relationship argue with each other at the most inappropriate times. The male version of this would be brother-bitching!)

Not to say it isn’t relevant, but that they push it a little farther than was necessary to establish the plot point.

Yet even in this there is comedy, as the exchanges between the protagonist, Grace, and the sister nobody knew she had, Faith, are prolonged so far past the point of absurdity—they are, after all, being hunting by rich psychopaths—that we must still chuckle even as we roll our eyes.

The choice of names here also offers us a lot to consider as regards the subtext and theme of these films.

Ready or Not is a dark farce, yes, but also an honest reflection of the concept of strength versus power.

That Grace and Faith should find themselves in a situation where they must endure being terrorized by Power in the form of a cabal of global financiers that run the world is a theme I think we can all understand.

As for the devil, who in this case comes in the guise of a Mister Le Bail, he seems to just be doing his job—punctually and punctiliously carried out by the aforementioned Wood, who is only known as “the lawyer”.

One even gets the sense that the devil is so bored with the weak and ineffectual ministrations of the new, pampered rich that he sabotages their attempt to win his game.

But I will say no more, lest spoilers be imminent.

Regarding the theme, I covered it from a different angle in my essay The Devil Went Down on Cesare Borgia:

If I were a Christian preacher, and this were a sermon, I would say it like this:

The devil always loses. It’s implicit in God’s design. His entire purpose is to lose. What’s most important to the devil, and apparently to God, since it is, after all, His design, is for the devil to tempt you to do evil.

If we commit evil acts in the process of fighting the devil, it does not render the acts any less evil.

The devil always loses, but it matters not to him, for his purpose was to get you to compromise your most dearly held principles just so you could stay in the game.

Alas, I am not a Christian preacher, nor even the devil’s lawyer, but like most of us nowadays, I often feel like I’m stuck in the jury box trying to decide a case between two equally reprehensible parties who are the cause of, and never the remedy to, the problems about which they purport to care, and I often wonder: why are we freethinkers not the plaintiffs and they the defendants?

In any event, if you need a break from the Kangaroo Court of Public Opinion, Ready or Not 2 provides a welcome respite.