The allegorical simplicity of Netflix’s The Platform makes it brilliant—a sequel seems antithetical. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform 2 needlessly complicates the original’s food-fighting take on hierarchical class governance. Religious iconography influences heavy-handed zealotry, while callbacks and returning characters feel out of place. Gaztelu-Urrutia’s expansion feels redundant and over-explained, but also sludgy and disjointed. It’s like being served a second dinner after you’re uncomfortably full; the flavors taste the same, but the experience is far less fulfilling.
Gaztelu-Urrutia and his co-writers reintroduce the film’s dystopian 333-floor structure, The Pit, on the 24th floor. Cellmates Perempuan (Milena Smit) and Zamiatin (Hovik Keuchkerian) shouldn’t fret over their daily sustenance, as a levitating slate piled with requested meals by each inhabitant feeds the masses. However, as in The Platform, free will causes some to act selfishly. That’s why The Law is in place to protect the chain of communication and rations per floor, as Gaztelu-Urrutia explores the tyranny and hazards of false prophets dubbed “Anointed Ones” who command followers up and down the tower’s levels.
The Platform 2 doesn’t waste time reintroducing its environmental rules. Perempuan and Zamiatin know the drill. Gaztelu-Urrutia is more obsessed with the blind messiah Dagin Babi (Óscar Jaenada), who doles out gory justice when dissidents do not abide by commandments. The façade of civility runs on the mantra of fairness, which initially feels utopian until “Barbarians” attempt to sabotage Babi’s upholding of an unseen Master’s decree. It’s all profoundly Catholic-coded and not without intrigue, the script questioning the conflict between strict communal adherence and individual survival instincts. But the ideological explorations and exploitations are not the film’s problem.
As Perempuan weighs lawlessness against The Law, and Babi inflicts his bone-snapping consequences, The Platform 2’s story gets flakey. Month-long cycles blur into one another before cellmates regain consciousness on a new floor, the temporal muck hardly helped by the unstimulating visual sludge shot by cinematographer Jon D. Domínguez. Only stoplight-red gels add color to the concrete-chic décor, making it even less appealing on a return visit. Babi’s methods of dismemberment and execution send body parts raining down the square central table opening, but it’s not shocking enough. Once the script’s reliance on evoking theological parallels chars to an underwhelmingly twice-baked crisp, even the rebellions and faction warfare gets dull. Gaztelu-Urrutia knows he can’t get away with an elementary satire again, but tries anyway.
The filmmaker adds in interview flashbacks to The Pit’s participants signing their documents and requesting the meals that will eventually be delivered by the platform, which tries to inject character to the otherwise drab production. Yet The Platform 2 is unshakably hollow. Perempuan’s background as a famous artist shallowly ties into the ham-and-cheese croquettes she requests that taste of sadness, while Zamiatin’s pizza-a-day diet comes with anger issues. These traits play into their navigation of The Law and The Pit, but this emotional straightforwardness amounts to nothing as Gaztelu-Urrutia pursues a third act that unravels like a fever dream. In trying to enrich The Pit’s lore and illustrate the supervising company’s logistical executions, The Platform 2 loses its effectiveness. Its messaging is understandable; but it’s all just tossed into a boil that drowns out any distinct themes in favor of uniform cultist-movie homogeny.
In The Platform 2, Gaztelu-Urrutia gets away from everything that made The Platform so compelling. The food photography isn’t as important—there’s no panna cotta equivalent here. The vertical expeditions can’t recapture the same excitement, perhaps because we’re less invested in any of the perceived heroes or villains. The architectural minimalism feels stuffier; the nondescript interrogation room production design fails to hold attention. The film is either too familiar by way of imitation or straying, head-scratchingly, from its own narrative path—both bolstering the idea that a film like The Platform never needed a sequel.
The Platform 2 grasps at straws and takes a plunge in quality compared to its supremely superior original. Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Chef is a better reinterpretation of this idea, frankly. Gaztelu-Urrutia misunderstands why audiences devoured The Platform, convoluting the most brilliantly straightforward anti-capitalist Netflix Original horror movie. In both cooking and filmmaking, less is often more. Guess what advice Gaztelu-Urrutia ignores?
Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Writer: David Desola, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, Egoitz Moreno, Pedro Rivero
Starring: Hovik Keuchkerian, Milena Smit, Óscar Jaenada
Release Date: October 4, 2024 (Netflix)
