Sicario 2: Day of Soldado

Going in: Recently saw the first one. I really liked it. I love Josh Brolin and Del Toro in these roles and just like the characters in general. There's some piece of them that is admirable but another piece you'd want to avoid.

Popcorn: 7/10. I went back and forth on this a couple of times. I wasn't sure if it was an "8" or not. I suppose that's common in sequels. Anyway, I loved parts of it and it was enjoyable.

Art: 7/10. It's a good and solid film. I think they had some plot problems but overall it was enjoyable.

Acting: 3/3. These are good roles for Del Toro and Brolin. And the child actors were surprisingly good. A lot of little subtleties and some pretty good emoting. Except Del Toro and Brolin. Their characters didn't but that was by design.

Music: 1/2. The music made a comeback and it was used in part to build the emotion, but not nearly enough. It was noticeable in the background but not annoying. But, I didn't notice anything special about it.

Filming: 1/2. There were some good landscape shots but nothing that really stuck out. Some of the shot choices were the same as the first movie but in a different context.

Art Dept: 1/2. Nothing pulled me out of the movie, but nothing made me say "wow" either.

Editing: 1/2. Okay, there were some spots in here, some obvious continuity errors. Nothing horrible, but I would have thought that it would have been spotless.

Story: 3/4. The first story was great and kept you guessing. This was didn't have that opportunity and so they had to go for character. And they did. Correctly. My problem was that there were two key points that relied on coincidence and one of them made me mad. The only other thing is that there was a side character who had some stupid dialog and it was just an opportunity to show some exposition. Anyway, the "mad-making" luck (not really coincidence) is the real culprit here.

Directing: 2/3. This is still a pretty good movie. It capitalizes on the first and goes more after character here than before. I liked it despite its flaws. Especially the kid actors. There's some serious talent up and coming.

Production: 2/2. Good story worth watching. I think they could have gone into character a bit more but it was enjoyable.