Movie Review
The Last Temptation of Becky
6/10
TLDR
The Last Temptation of Becky sends Lulu Wilson’s ferocious heroine undercover as a CIA agent against Neil Patrick Harris’s would-be Fourth Reich, and Wilson is as strong as ever, especially on her own. But a third director in three films, stilted kills, and a premise the movie won’t fully commit to make this the weakest entry yet.
Where to watch: Only in theaters November 4 (Quiver Distribution)
The Facts
Synopsis: Now a CIA field agent, Becky goes undercover in Poland to infiltrate a family running an inn at The Wolf’s Lair, one of Hitler’s WWII bunkers. When she learns the father, Wilhelm Reuss, plans to spark the Fourth Reich, Becky must stop him.
Director: Jenn Wexler
Stars: Lulu Wilson, Neil Patrick Harris, Kate Siegel, Brandon Flynn, Catherine Walker, James Urbaniak
Rated: Not Rated
Running Length: 89 minutes
The Thoughts
An unexpected franchise to be sure, the Becky films have been a wild ride to watch grow up. What began with Becky, a nasty, gruesome home invasion thriller that took a hatchet to the limits of good taste, turned into a more commercial sequel with The Wrath of Becky, which played right into audience expectations and came out the other end much more successful in my mind. Now, with The Last Temptation of Becky, the series swings bigger than ever, trying both to move its title character forward and to close her original arc with the loopiest of loops, and that means Nazis, more mayhem, and a teenager who still doesn’t play nice with her prey.
The intentions are good, and landing Neil Patrick Harris as the main agitator is a casting coup, but this is probably the poorest made of the three. Of all things, it cuts corners on the violence, and it can’t shake the nagging feeling that we’ve played this murder game before.
The Last Temptation of Becky Crashes the Fourth Reich
Picking up after the events of Wrath, The Last Temptation of Becky finds Becky (Lulu Wilson, Annabelle: Creation) working as a field agent for the CIA, a job that seems made for someone with her particular set of skills and her near-total disregard for following orders. Her latest assignment sends her undercover to Poland to infiltrate a family running an inn at the Wolf’s Lair, the real-life site of one of Hitler’s World War II bunkers. It doesn’t take long for her to learn that the family’s patriarch, General Wilhelm Reuss (Harris), plans to spark the Fourth Reich, and anyone who has seen the first two films knows exactly how Becky feels about Nazis.
Some of the ideas land. The arsenal of gadgets Becky is handed before she heads out is a blast once she puts it to use in the field, and it’s built to do far more damage than anything Q ever handed James Bond. Others, like a secret Nazi operation hiding in plain sight at one of history’s most infamous Nazi landmarks, should be gold but never truly pan out because the filmmakers hesitate to fully embrace the tone. Had they just gone with the concept all the way, the movie may have been offensive and wrong, but at least it would have stayed true to the other films, which capitalized on those very ideas.
Becky Doesn’t Do Teamwork
It’s been fun to watch Wilson grow as an actress throughout the series, and while the confidence in the character has always been there, there’s a strength to her work that really comes into play in this chapter, especially when she goes toe to toe with Harris or shares a tender moment with Kate Siegel. The acting around her is clunkier, though, and Wilson fares far better when Becky is on her own than when she’s interacting with most of the rest of the cast. Like the character, she doesn’t always work well with others, but she kills it when sent in alone.
It seems like with Nazis you are basically required to play things over the top, so Harris (who already showed off his creepy side in Gone Girl) pitches his would-be architect of the Fourth Reich at a level 12 and gathers around him a family (a wife, a son, and a daughter) and henchmen who follow suit. I liked seeing Siegel again outside of her husband Mike Flanagan’s world (she was terrific in Hypnotic), but as Becky’s CIA handler, Agent Kate Montana, she’s stymied by a character with no real center until the script demands one, which leaves her floating around a bit.
So good in 13 Reasons Why, Brandon Flynn (Hellraiser) should have been given more to do as Becky’s fellow agent, Jordan Rigby, but he’s oddly out of sync with the film. Perhaps it’s acting opposite Wilson, whom he should be more of a brother figure to, but something just fails to click. He’s used as more of a utility player, brought in when it wouldn’t make sense for her to be talking to (or fighting alongside) anyone else, so it’s a strange character to see pop up so infrequently, and Flynn never seems to quite figure it out either.
Three Movies, Three Directors, One Becky
I do wish there was more consistency with the direction. Because each film has had a different director (or directing team), the franchise has never settled on a signature tone or visual calling card, and it shouldn’t fall to Wilson to be the only through line. Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion directed the first, Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote took over for the second (and stayed on to write the story for this one), and now Jenn Wexler (The Sacrifice Game) steps in, which leaves her almost starting from scratch in building relationships and purpose in an 89-minute movie. The result is three films that feel like three similar but not equal parts of a whole, and the cracks show the most in this one.
Wexler is clearly a fan of the series, and in her director’s statement she lists everything from James Bond and Mission: Impossible to Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935) and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) as influences. You can feel the spy-movie DNA in the gadgets and the globe-trotting, at least, but with 89 minutes and a brand-new crew, the mix never settles into a voice the series can call its own.
A Bloody Sequel That’s Bashful About Its Blood
Shot in Belfast, with Northern Ireland standing in for Poland, The Last Temptation of Becky has Julia Swain behind the camera and Adam O’Neill on production design, while franchise composer Nima Fakhrara returns with a score that nods to Becky’s past. Wexler also brought in artist Cassidy Routh for the title design and motion graphics, and it turns out to be one of the film’s sharpest weapons. Routh’s location titles, which pop up throughout in bold, bright colors, punch through the screen with the kind of attitude the rest of the movie could use more of.
Where it falters is the violence, which is a strange thing to say about a Becky movie. It actually made me appreciate the slick, take-no-prisoners gristle of the first film more, with its inventive kills that showed off their work, instead of the oddly stilted efforts here.
In what feels like an attempt to cut down on CGI, the filmmakers lean on practical camera tricks, which means there are a lot of cuts to and from poison victims that show them getting bloodier as a side effect of their lethal dose. Or sleights of hand that make you think one character has thrown a knife into the face of another when said knife was there before someone yelled action. It’s those little things you notice in these genre films, and for a series that once pushed so hard on showing its work, this one is weirdly bashful about sharing it.
Perhaps the budget was smaller, but it feels like it was made faster and cheaper, resulting in a less visceral experience and more of one that closes one chapter so something new can begin.
Give Becky Her Own Show
I’ve always felt Becky would be a great character for an ongoing streaming series, and perhaps now is a good time to consider it. Wilson (who serves as an executive producer, as does Harris) has grown up in this role, and a show would give the character the consistent voice the movies have never quite managed to find.
The Last Temptation of Becky is still a fun enough ride if you’ve followed her this far, and Wilson remains the best reason to queue it up. It’s just the first time the series pulls its punches, and for a heroine who has never pulled one in her life, that’s a strange way to close a chapter.
The Final
The Last Temptation of Becky closes a chapter by pulling its punches, a strange look for a heroine who never has. Three films and three combinations of directors later, the cracks finally show, so maybe it’s time to give Becky her own streaming series.
6/10
Where to watch: Only in theaters November 4 (Quiver Distribution)
Reviewed by Joe Botten
Joe Botten is The MN Movie Man, a Twin Cities film critic writing spoiler-free reviews since 2012. He also writes for Loud and Clear Reviews, a Rotten Tomatoes approved site. Find him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
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