The impulse in a sequel is always to go bigger. In terms of sheer altitude, Fall 2: Deadpoint doubles its predecessor: Instead of being trapped atop a 2,000-foot abandoned radio tower in the middle of the American desert, its protagonists are trapped against the side of a 4,000-foot mountain on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, which we’re told early on is a dangerous place due to conflicts between border patrol agents and fentanyl smugglers. Of course, our protagonists go there anyway, because they have to grow by facing their fears or whatever. And, as we all know, an American’s self-actualization is the most important thing in the world.
The extent of our heroines’ entitlement is not made clear until midway through the movie, when Jax (Harriet Slater) and Luce (Arsema Thomas) are very upset when they realize that the Thai locals, who warned them not to go on an illegal climb up the side of a mountain that’s been closed to the public for decades because it’s too dangerous, are not willing to risk their own lives to save these dumb tourists from their own recklessness. (The locals are framed as the bad guys.) In retrospect, however, the red flags were there from the start: Mere days after meeting her in the first act, Jax agrees to quit her job and go on an expedition with Luce in honor of her sister, an “adventure influencer” who fell from the aforementioned tower and died in the first movie.
Shiloh (Virginia Gardner, who appears in flashbacks) has only gotten more popular since her death, and the series of clips that opens the film shows podcast hosts and other influencers talking about her as if she’s a hero. This is, naturally, troubling to Jax, who prefers to remember Shiloh as her sister and not as “#Fallgirl.” Still, it takes relatively little effort to convince the timid Jax to follow her more daring sister’s dreams, and soon she and Luce — who introduces herself as Shiloh’s college friend — are on a boat en route to the fictional Mt. Kwan with a copy of Shiloh’s “F*ck-It Book” (a sassier bucket list, essentially) of adventure ideas in hand.
Putting aside the inconsistencies and logic leaps gets easier once these young women actually climb up the side of Mt. Kwan and gingerly shuffle out onto the so-called “plank walk,” a narrow path that consists of little more than a few rickety boards held up by rusty pipes jammed into the sheer rock face. (The real hike that Fall 2 is based on, the Huashan Plank Trail in Shaanxi, China, is significantly better equipped, but that’s not nearly as much fun.) It takes a little while to suspend disbelief, partially because the mountain itself has so clearly been generated through digital VFX. How can you be scared of something that obviously isn’t there?
But directors Peter and Michael Sperig do get there eventually, and the middle third of this 97-minute movie is full of nauseatingly tense moments as Jax, Luce, and their expat guide John (Tom Brittney) risk death, inch by inch, as they round the so-called “Devil’s Shoulder” in pursuit of high-altitude thrills. I, personally, am very much afraid of heights. And multiple scenes in the second act of Fall 2: Deadpoint made me gasp and mutter, “oh, no” as the conditions get worse — just like the locals said they would — along the trail. First it rains, and the walkway gets slippery. Then small rocks start pelting down on our hikers. Then the rocks get bigger, destroying a portion of the walkway and separating Jax and Luce from the more experienced John.
But, as with the original Fall, there’s only so much narrative juice you can squeeze out of POV shots looking down at the valley far, far below our characters, as horrifying as they may be. And so, also like the original Fall, once Jax and Luce get stuck, Fall 2 fills its remaining runtime with a series of narrative twists. No spoilers, but Jax in particular learns all the wrong lessons from her ordeal, revealing herself to be a self-righteous hypocrite who’s unable to accept that no one forced her to go on this foolhardy hike — on a notoriously unsafe trail that, again, is clearly marked as closed — in the first place.
Under different circumstances, we might feel sorry for Jax. Grief makes people do crazy things. But the “obnoxious American” aspect of Fall 2: Deadfall, and its seeming obliviousness to the eye-rolling ways that it reinforces this stereotype, suggest that moving this unlikely franchise abroad was a bad idea. Another unforced error comes when the movie sets up a third Fall (Fall 3: Look Out Below!, perhaps?) in its final moments, vastly overestimating our investment in, or even memory of, these characters. In the end, overcomplicating what started as a good, simple premise is the ultimate example of this movie’s poor decision-making — both on and off screen.
