The Platform 2 Review: Does Not Disappoint and Is Even More Scary | Netflix Film

Cast: Milena Smit, Hovik Keuchkerian, Natalia Tena, Oscar Jaenada

Directed By: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)

Four years after the release of the first chapter, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform 2 (El hoyo 2) returns to Netflix, greedier and itchier, ready to overcome (more or less) social criticism to demonize faith and religion as well. Five years after the first film, the Spanish saga of The Platform returns with the long-awaited sequel to one of the most popular films in the history of Netflix. Available on the streaming platform starting October 4, The Platform 2 features two new protagonists in the cast including Milena Smit (who we have already admired in the film Parallel Mothers and the series The Snow Girl) and Hovik Keuchkerian (Money Heist) and Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia Munitxa returns to direct, ready to give the audience moments of fear and profound introspection once again. The Platform 2 is a sequel that does not disappoint, it is an intense, disturbing, raw, philosophical show ready to make you reflect on the themes of freedom, justice, differences between social classes, and guilt and to shake consciences.

It was 2019 when the already vast catalog of films and feature films branded Netflix was enriched by a very original film of Spanish production that played with the founding themes and styles of dystopia, allegory, and the horror and thriller genre premonitions. Prefiguring an alternative contemporary reality in which social inequalities were reiterated inside a mysterious Pit where those at the top benefited from food at will and those at the bottom were satisfied with crumbs, The Platform was a case that generated fans and proselytes in streaming. Five years after the first chapter born from the pen tandem of screenwriters David Desola and Pedro Rivero, the Hispanic director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia returns behind the camera for an unexpected sequel. In our review of The Platform 2, we will tell you where the story weaves its threads, the hidden and symbolic meanings, and why it cannot fully compete with the freshness of vision and writing of the 2019 cult movie.

The Platform 2 Review: The Story Plot

In a sort of prison that develops vertically on a large number of levels, on floor 0, located at the top of the building, there is a fully equipped kitchen whose staff has the task of setting a large table, the “platform”, every day, with the favorite dishes of all the people imprisoned on the floors below. Each floor is numbered and two companions are moved from one level to another together every month, if both survived, randomly. The room has a sink to wash with, towels to clean yourself, and a toilet. The platform descends vertically through “the pit”, a rectangular opening in the center of each floor. Having no food with them, the prisoners have the opportunity to eat, within a few minutes, the leftovers of those on the floors above.

In this second chapter, a newcomer who wants to gain leadership by rebelling against the system, a mysterious but charismatic personality who decides to fight against a ruthless method of eating. Fear and hunger always reign supreme, but eating from the wrong plate is a death sentence, and not everyone is willing to risk their life; this time too, the (class) struggle for survival will be cruel and completely brutal. As with the premises of the 2019 Spanish gem, The Platform 2 also features the claustrophobic sets that made the cult movie directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia successful and established its distinctive trait. Only on the second attempt, something seems to have gone wrong.

We are still in the “pit” but the characters change. The protagonist is a girl who has to deal with a huge sense of guilt for a dramatic event that changed her life. Once she enters the game, she will find herself face-to-face with a survival system dominated by many rules imposed by a mysterious leader. After a series of injustices, an internal struggle will begin to fight the brutal food system. The story of The Platform returns to Netflix with a renewed and doubled dose of violence and brutality. Elements that are certainly disturbing but necessary to push the viewer to a deep reflection on the concepts of right and wrong, on the sense of guilt, on what makes us good or bad, and how these labels can be interchangeable depending on the perspective from which you look at the facts.

The Platform 2 Review and Analysis

By telling the wicked actions of people struggling with a situation of extreme survival, the story of The Platform shocks but at the same time fascinates, makes you shiver but keeps you glued to the screen by posing existential questions that belong to everyone and that are able, therefore, to speak to the conscience of anyone who finds themselves in front of the TV. And this is precisely what makes this film universal and, consequently, successful. How much are you willing to sacrifice to survive? How far is it right to go to protect your own life? Is it better to sacrifice others or yourself in a situation of extreme danger? Can we distribute food and wealth fairly in the world? The answers to these questions will be found within each one of us by watching a story that, once again, is ready to leave its mark. The Platform 2 presents itself as a good sequel. Many elements that distinguished the first film return and the style of the story of the first chapter are maintained without too many upheavals. The Platform 2 is watched with interest, it captures the attention and certainly keeps you glued to the screen leaving even more open questions to be answered.

Here too, with the sequel arriving exclusively on Netflix starting Friday, October 4, the brutal and shocking kermesse of class struggle served on a table laden with every kind of food is repeated. In the new chapter starring a new and corpulent Hovik Keuchkerian and the Milena Smit we all learned to love in Pedro Almodovar’s Madres Paralelas, the classist and social dystopia is wasted. And this time, the voice and face of the (gastronomic?) revolution is in double step: not one, but two new protagonists in the league against the tyrannical and mysterious power that regulates and manages the laws of the multi-level prison. From the premises, everything in The Platform 2 seems to bring to Netflix viewers’ minds the stimulating and original elements that had taken hold in 2019 with the pioneering feature film that set a record for views on the streaming platform.

So, what doesn’t work in this second chapter? The feeling you get when you carefully watch the new effort behind the camera by the Spanish director is that something went wrong in the scriptwriting phase. The writing credits for the sequel are attributed not only to the pre-existing duo of David Desola and Pedro Rivero, but this time they also belong to Gaztelu-Urrutia himself and the “fourth wheel” Egoitz Moreno. Is this a sign of artistic divergences in the writing phase of the script for the long-awaited sequel? It would certainly seem so. After all, The Platform 2 is, in all respects, a sequel that is not up to the level of the famous previous one. In this new adventure inside the terrifying multi-level prison, everything is told from the point of view of its two new protagonists, from their dilemmas, their actions, and their iron will to eradicate once and for all the hierarchical power above the “platform”. Even in this case, the culinary aspect plays a role that is only and deliberate accessory, to want to tell something else during the duration of the Spanish film.

A pop and entertaining examination of the worst bestialities of human beings, of their baseness, of their instincts but also their strength to survive, The Platform 2 is supported only by the acting performances that embellish it. With the new entries led by the enigmatic characters with the faces of Milena Smit and Hovik Keuchkerian respectively, the sequel signed by Netflix leaves nothing but “crumbs” to the rest of the structural elements that compose it, from the writing to the directorial ideas. A second chapter not necessarily urgent or requested by streaming Internet users, but which distorts the whole meaning of the feature film from five years earlier in the guise of a watered-down and decidedly forgettable sequel. All things considered, is the sequel to The Platform worth watching? Yes and no. Certainly, those who loved the claustrophobic and at times dystopian atmospheres and themes of the first film from 2019 will find an “old friend” conveniently streaming, albeit with a different story and completely new characters (or maybe not?).

But the reality is that The Platform 2 has more of the brazen aspect of a new chapter that does not retain the strength and originality of its excellent predecessor, establishing itself more as a productive attempt to seek algorithmic and user success than to truly want to continue telling a story that also had very interesting allegorical traits. A bit of a shame, because the metaphorical and almost Mephistophelian story of a contemporary society in which you can atone for your mistakes inside a multi-level prison and which seems to echo the distortions of a modern capitalist system that increasingly divides the citizens of the world into riches and poverty, was truly brilliant. This time, however, the desire to probably cash in and replicate a “guaranteed” success got the better of what otherwise could have turned into a potentially very respectable sequel.

One of the main novelties in the pit of The Platform 2 is that there is no longer the chaos that reigned in the previous film, in which the fight for survival derived from the social structure of the CAV, composed of “three classes of people: those at the top, those at the bottom and those who fall”. In this second film, a “solidarity revolution” is taking place, which proposes to the inhabitants of all levels to eat only one dish, their favorite as indicated at the entrance, so that the table set can truly feed all the prisoners of the 333 levels. “Since the solidarity revolution began, every month the pit becomes more equal. And with everyone’s help, the Law will soon reach the last level”, explains one of the revolutionaries (not for nothing, called Robespierre by Zamiatin). As history has taught over and over again, a revolution always has martyrs and victims, and the one taking place in the pit is no exception. There are the Anointed, a kind of vigilantes ready to enforce at all costs the Law taught by the Master, the mysterious Dagin Babi (Óscar Jaenada), who explains how the rules should not be interpreted, but applied with force, to the point of violence. Anyone who remembers the final message of The Platform, that is, the “panna cotta”, can easily understand the leap in horror that this new Law entails.

If The Platform was a heterogeneous, beloved, and satirical treatise on philosophy, its second chapter seems to go even further. The Platform 2 stages the horrors of fanaticism, of mass extremism that also plays with the excesses of religion – the references to Prophets and Anointed, the difference between those who blindly accept the Law, and the violence suffered by those who challenge it and those who dare to question its fairness. It is not for nothing that the leader of the fanatics of the solidarity revolution has sacrificed his eyes to the cause, thus becoming literally but also metaphorically blind. History has often taught that when a situation gets out of hand when ideals are taken to excess and applied end masse, massacre is just around the corner. In The Platform 2 the director confidently pushes the pedal of violence, which becomes even more grandiose in its brutality. The new film maintains the theatricality of the scenes from the first film, which often evokes great paintings, such as the table that descends through the pit, which at a certain point recalls The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault.

As mentioned, The Platform 2 is again based on a deliberately allegorical basis, finding in it a certain stability but also a certain limit. The narrative structure does not move a step from what was already seen in the first chapter, with Urrutia attempting a few more movements inside the prison and a photographic alternation of the image that tries to warm up an aesthetic otherwise too still and aseptic (beyond the gore permeates the vision). A more international cast – there is also Natalia Tena – and colorful does not change the cinematic status quo of the project much, even if the main character played by Milena Smit, Perempuan, gives a new perspective to the entire story. The same problem as the first film persists: the third and final act goes off on a superficially elaborate dreamlike tangent, which does not fit well with the rest of the product. The most important novelty, the most sensitive one, is precisely this reference to faith and its inconsistencies which instead fit well with the context of the story, in its positive but especially negative aspects.

The detail of the Spanish Inquisition is perhaps the most important to decipher the operation, especially looking at the action that moves from the top to the bottom, where the punishment descends mercilessly at the hands of those above to the detriment of “those who do not conform to the words of the Messiah“, such as Jews and Muslims in 1400. Beyond everything, in the finale of The Platform, it was Trimagasi who suggested to Goreng that the child was the message and that he did not need careers, to suggest trust in future generations, to be protected and saved anyway. In a hell-purgatory like that, from the lowest existing point and in a social and civil key, hope pointed high, to the stars, towards heaven. In The Platform 2 hope is rejected in spiritual and fundamental terms downwards, suggesting that “only fear can subdue the beasts” and that “terror is the message“. The film wants to tell us to fight every possible system and every possible belief, which in the historical cycle have done nothing but create inequalities and competition. Not armed with hope or faith, however, but with conscience, knowledge, and humanity. No one is saved alone. Everyone is saved together.

The Platform 2 Review: The Last Words

Without risking spoilers, we can say that The Platform 2 is truly a surprising sequel, since a good part of the main elements, from the protagonists to the story itself, continually change shape throughout the film, up to the final revelations, which allow the viewer to fully understand even the most complex parts. So similar and so different to the previous one, The Platform 2 is scarier than the first, going further and digging even deeper into human and historical consciousness. Perhaps because, as Perempuán discovers: «We are prisoners of ourselves and there is no escape from that. With this second chapter, without a doubt, The Platform confirms itself as one of the most original and successful titles on Netflix, perfectly in line with the survival genre to which it belongs and ready to conquer the public once again. Don’t miss it.

The Platform 2 Review: Does Not Disappoint and Is Even More Scary | Netflix Film - Filmyhype

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Date Created: 2024-10-04 18:55

Editor's Rating:
4

Pros

• The criticism underlying everything, which here becomes almost an invective cleverly hidden in the allegory.
• The performances of Milena Smit and Hovik Keuchkerian.
• The villain.
• The dystopian and claustrophobic atmosphere of the film
• The excellent performances of the two protagonists
• The social allegory, always present here

Cons

• It doesn't move a single step away from the cinematic goal of the first chapter.
• The third act focuses on a confusing dream.
• Few new features in the direction.
• It doesn't have even an ounce of the originality of the first film.
• An unnecessary and underpowered sequel
• The script has many flaws