Considering 2019’s Bird Box remains one of Netflix’s biggest hits of all time, it wasn’t a surprise when it was announced that a spinoff was in the works. With the new entry in the apocalyptic world set to be new on Netflix later this week, reviews are here for Bird Box Barcelona, and critics seem mixed on the new movie.
Bird Box Barcelona is not so much a sequel, but a spinoff of the Sandra Bullock-led movie that tells a new story set in a dystopian future where humanity must cover their eyes from an entity that can inspire one to take their own life. Let’s start this roundup on the positive end with Marco Vito Oddo’s Collider review. Here’s what the reviewer thought:
While a post-apocalyptic movie has to be entertaining – and Bird Box Barcelona most certainly is – due to the oversaturation of the subgenre, we also expect these stories to have something to say. Fortunately, instead of using the creatures as a simple plot device as the first movie did, Bird Box Barcelona leans into how the presence of incomprehensible forces can lead to religious questions. As such, Bird Box Barcelona surprisingly raises a debate about how blind faith can be as dangerous as the monsters preying on humanity.
Oddo praised the Spain-set film for tackling some deep topics with its horror concept. He called Bird Box Barcelona much better than the original movie “in every way.” In the same vein, The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager declared it more enjoyable than the film that created the viral Bird Box Challenge. Here’s what he had to say:
In most respects, it’s a generic trip through a wasteland of evil creatures and equally malevolent men. Yet thanks to a couple of novel twists, it manages to outpace its predecessor in tension and originality—if not quite reinvigorate the franchise.
With those words in mind, it’s not like critics thought the first Bird Box was a masterpiece. The original movie received mixed reviews from critics and audiences, despite it breaking a ton of streaming records on Netflix. CinemaBlend’s Bird Box review at the time gave the movie a middling three out of five stars, calling it “cinematically rocky and tonally unsound.” Going back to Bird Box Barcelona, Variety’s Dennis Harvey actually thought the spinoff pulled “less punch” than the 2019 movie, writing this:
It turns out that “Barcelona” is a bit of a dead tree limb, however. Though slick and more expansive in some ways, with bigger action sequences, it proves an overlong, uninvolving entry, in which any attempted fresh wrinkles to this fantasy universe offer scant viewer reward.
Bird Box Barcelona follows a father, Mario Casas’ Sebastián and his daughter Alejandra Howard’s Anna as they navigate the dystopian world in Barcelona, Spain. The movie was filmed in Spain in the Spanish language, with the option for viewers to watch the dub if they please. Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro didn’t feel like the story was deep enough, sharing these words:
The emphasis on familiar Bird Box horror beats undermines the themes introduced. The Pastor brothers introduce a morally dubious lead, instilling heady questions of blind faith, profound grief, and whether salvation can be earned during humanity’s darkest days. But the filmmakers focus more on the set pieces in Sebastián’s journey to prolong lingering mysteries that flatten character development.
It sounds like there’s a lot of things going on in the spinoff, between religious themes, new characters and horror moments that seek to match the original film. Empire’s James Dyer recommended audiences skip the latest big title set to become available on Netflix this Friday. Here’s some of his comments:
…But even seen through fresh eyes, Bird Box Barcelona feels an inessential watch, and certainly not a worthy franchise launchpad for Netflix’s ill-advised BBCU.
Perhaps Bird Box isn’t meant to expand its storyline. Or perhaps you’ll fall into the camp of the reviewers who enjoyed the movie. Critics are mixed here, so form your own opinions about Bird Box Barcelona when it drops on Netflix this Friday, July 14.
