The first Orphan was a little gem neatly buried in the bottom of a bin full of DVDs, this unfortunate thing is, well, not that.
As much as I had wanted to see a sequel, keep that in mind, a sequel, not a prequel (we'll use sequel here to mean a contemporary continuation of the storyline), I was, as almost always, proven right, by the fact that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to produce one. Also, it bears remembering that Esther did kind of die in the first one, so I guess this was the only real road that they could have taken.
Orphan: First Kill, is a let-down, but an expected one. Yes, the actress who plays Esther has aged considerably, as it's been 10 or more years since the first one.... I can't say that that bothered me as much as the whole direction, look, and feel of the movie.
I won't bore you with a long-winded description of what happened from beginning to end, I'll try to be concise.
My main problem with this ill-advised prequel is that it ruined the aura and presence of Esther with that stupid as all hell twist in the middle. It reduced her to a whimpering little girl that was beholden to the mother and her cliche little rich boy that "plays too rough" with his sister. All of the plot holes that others have pointed out aside, this is what irked me the most. Esther became almost like an anti-hero, when she is supposed to be an out-and-out villain that we, the audience, are supposed to fear. This, to me, undid the ethos of the first. I shouldn't be rooting for Esther to kill the mother and the son, it only served to subtract from what I just said. And why was Esther playing along with the mother and son? Why not just kill them? The part when she's trying to run away from them - as though she's a real little girl that's absquatulating from a legitimately abusive home - then is taken back to the house by police and willingly goes into her room as though nothing is about to happen is a scene of sheer unreality. Again, you know that they're about to kill you, or to try to, so why not kill them first? I don't get it. Right, maybe it's just so the climax can feel a little more nail-biting, as there needs to be a tug-of-war between the characters for that to happen. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that the Esther from the first movie wouldn't allow this to happen.
Here's a rapid fire list of things that make this movie bad, not just compared to the first, but as a movie by itself:
Bad CGI.
Esther can somehow kill grown men by banging their heads against a wall, can appear in the back of cars somehow, shows up at a policeman's address without a vehicle. Esther can walk through a house engulfed by flames and smile all along the way.
The plot.
The family, especially mother and son.
As much as I had wanted to see a sequel, keep that in mind, a sequel, not a prequel (we'll use sequel here to mean a contemporary continuation of the storyline), I was, as almost always, proven right, by the fact that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to produce one. Also, it bears remembering that Esther did kind of die in the first one, so I guess this was the only real road that they could have taken.
Orphan: First Kill, is a let-down, but an expected one. Yes, the actress who plays Esther has aged considerably, as it's been 10 or more years since the first one.... I can't say that that bothered me as much as the whole direction, look, and feel of the movie.
I won't bore you with a long-winded description of what happened from beginning to end, I'll try to be concise.
My main problem with this ill-advised prequel is that it ruined the aura and presence of Esther with that stupid as all hell twist in the middle. It reduced her to a whimpering little girl that was beholden to the mother and her cliche little rich boy that "plays too rough" with his sister. All of the plot holes that others have pointed out aside, this is what irked me the most. Esther became almost like an anti-hero, when she is supposed to be an out-and-out villain that we, the audience, are supposed to fear. This, to me, undid the ethos of the first. I shouldn't be rooting for Esther to kill the mother and the son, it only served to subtract from what I just said. And why was Esther playing along with the mother and son? Why not just kill them? The part when she's trying to run away from them - as though she's a real little girl that's absquatulating from a legitimately abusive home - then is taken back to the house by police and willingly goes into her room as though nothing is about to happen is a scene of sheer unreality. Again, you know that they're about to kill you, or to try to, so why not kill them first? I don't get it. Right, maybe it's just so the climax can feel a little more nail-biting, as there needs to be a tug-of-war between the characters for that to happen. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that the Esther from the first movie wouldn't allow this to happen.
Here's a rapid fire list of things that make this movie bad, not just compared to the first, but as a movie by itself:
Bad CGI.
Esther can somehow kill grown men by banging their heads against a wall, can appear in the back of cars somehow, shows up at a policeman's address without a vehicle. Esther can walk through a house engulfed by flames and smile all along the way.
The plot.
The family, especially mother and son.