Fall 2 Review

In the first Fall movie – spoiler incoming – daredevil influencer Shiloh (Virginia Gardner) did indeed fall to her death from the top of a decommissioned 2000 foot communications tower she had climbed with her best friend Becky (Grace Caroline Currey). Fall 2 sees Shiloh's grieving sister Jax (Harriet Slater) and friend Luce (Arsema Thomas) adopt Shiloh's 'Fuck-It' list, filled with adventures she would have had if she'd lived long enough to do so. The first is in Thailand: a plank walk, 4000 feet up on the side of Mount Kwan. Because it's the rainy season, avalanches are common. The path is meant to be closed to all but the most experienced of climbers. That doesn't stop Jax and Luce, especially once they find a guide, Jon (Tom Brittney), to help them. So up they go, and here we go again. Fall 2 is a little more unwieldy than its predecessor. It takes longer to get to the designated place of acrophobic terrors, and is saddled with a frustratingly unnecessary final twist (more on that later). For a good portion in the middle though, the movie is just as thrillingly terrifying as the first, and as successful at inspiring nausea in its audience. A succession of avalanches leaves Jax and Luce trapped on a couple of planks barely wide enough to support them, stuck perilously in the mountain with nothing on either side but some rickety brackets. It's truly the stuff of nightmares. This second instalment is also better at building the bond between the two women at its centre. Jax's development from reluctance to go on the trip in the first place to unfathomable bravery is quite moving, and her rapport with Luce, who she barely knew before this expedition, is nicely played by Harriet Slater and Arsema Thomas. It would still be a stretch to call either of the characters at all dimensional, yet considering the kind of movie we're watching, we're given what we need to invest not just in their plight, but in their relationship. So it's a shame then that, after a point which could have happily served as Fall 2's culmination, the credits don't roll, another fifteen minutes of film do. While this unexpected coda is certainly action packed, and delivers on the standard demands for sequels to be bigger and more dangerous than what came before, that action goes a long way towards undercutting the engaging storytelling that had come earlier. It doesn't ruin the movie – we all know that the point of this nascent series is the spectacle, and in that regard, Fall 2 certainly delivers. Still, it does rob the film of an extra dimension that was so nearly within its grasp. The very end of Fall 2 presents an amusingly blatant set-up for Fall 3. With Shiloh's Fuck-It List to plough through, and a lot of very high places in the world, this is one series with a potentially inexhaustible lifespan. And however much you might wish for more from these movies, the idea of another few vertiginous globe-trotting jaunts remains an appealing one. ★★★ FALL 2 only in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from September 9