Spoilers.

One glaring problem here is that EVERYONE has a quirky sidekick for absolutely no good reason.

-David has a girlfriend/sidekick. Fine.
-Liam has a sidekick. Fine. Standard fare, so whatever.
-Dr Okun has a sidekick. Ok... wtf, but ok.

-The African Guerilla Warrior as a sidekick. Because why the fuck not at this point.

-David's dad has four sidekicks. And then a bus full of them. Because again: WHY THE FUCK NOT.


First: this goes into my mindless popcorn movie file. I actually didn't hate it. I'm happy I finally got my sequel. It's whatever.

There's a lot to bitch about but one significant issue is that this was bogged down by so many useless characters.

David's girlfriend, by herself would have been fine.

Liam's sidekick didn't need to exist and took up way too much screen time, and that's another issue: they made this another tired ass Young Adult Novel movie with tired ass Young Adult Novel tropes..... like the girl he pines for.

So Liam gets a sidekick and the sidekick gets a love interest because.... well... yeah. Oh, and the love interest gets an entrance that looks like she's gonna be important. She's part of a
"Legacy Squad" that's led by Captain Heller's bland, goofy ass kid and gets swarmed for autographs when she shows up. She seems like she's going to be critical.

....but all she does is look at shit and eventually, suddenly, mercifully decide to have dinner with Liam's cornball sidekick.... after riding shotgun for him on a mission.

Oh, and David's pops basically rescues/kidnaps a car full of children.... and then takes them with him as he rescues/kidnaps a bus full of children. I know he's helping but this shit was completely useless and I enjoyed it more once I framed it in that way.

Anyhow, none of the following characters neeeded to fucking exists:

David's girl, Liam's sidekick, Liam's sidekick's girlfriend, the African Guerilla Warrior and his unlikely sidekick, Dr Okun's completely unnecessary and useless sidekick, and I'm sure there were others.

Whoever they cast as Hellers kid was trash too. Good god was he boring. Liam wasn't terribly awful but this kid managed to be as bland as I expected Liam to be.

But yeah this was mediocre just from a character standpoint, without getting into anything else. I'd avoid it unless you're like me and absolutely love ID4 and absolutely MUST to see a sequel in the theater.