The Wrath Of Becky (2023) – OH MY GOD!

Released: 16th November
Seen: 23rd November

In 2020 a little film called Becky came out and delivered something that cinema desperately needed, a 14 year old girl who kills a whole assload of Nazi assholes in various wild and wonderful ways. It was an absolute blast of a film, filled with great performances by absolutely everyone involved and created an instantly iconic female character with Becky. It was a film that I enjoyed so much it made the honourable mentions list on my best films list that year and the Kevin James performance was the 11th best performance on my list. When news of a sequel came out you can imagine the genuine excitement that built, more fun time with Becky violently killing a bunch of bastards just sounded like the best thing possible and thank goodness, The Wrath Of Becky absolutely lives up to the standard set by the film that came before it.

The Wrath Of Becky picks up a few years after the first movie with our favourite girl Becky (Lulu Wilson) still trying to deal with the trauma from her past. This tends to lead to her running away from her foster homes regularly as she prefers to stay off the grid and live with someone called Elena (Denise Burse) and her dog Diego while honing her survival skills. She manages to hold down a job at a local diner where she runs into three misogynistic assholes who annoy her so much she dumps coffee in their lap. They retaliate by following her, kidnapping her dog and murdering Elena so naturally Becky makes it her new mission to see these assholes die. 

Becky ends up following them to a little cabin where they’re shacked up with a charismatic fascist sexist leader named Darryl (Seann William Scott) who has recruited these three chuckleheads to take part in an insurrection against the local government, recruiting them via message boards where they connect over a deep painful misogynistic streak that makes them all hateable. Since they have her dog though, Becky makes sure each of these absolute garbage humans dies in gloriously creative ways, because they deserve it.

The Wrath Of Becky clearly took notes of any criticisms that people had from the first one and corrected them while also delivering on what makes this franchise special, namely letting a little girl live out the fantasy of doing away with a bunch of bigots. The big issue the first film had was a tone issue, diving between over the top and seriousness so much that it ended up not working out as well as it could’ve. The Wrath Of Becky doesn’t have that issue, this film tells seriousness to go fuck itself and plays around with stylism, fourth wall breaking insanity and enough violence against white supremacists to make anyone feel full with absolute joy. It brings in some fun elements like Becky just showing off what she’d like to do before revealing what she actually does, or just her inner monologue casually bantering with the audience in a way that lets you love this character even more.

Changing the main villains from Neo-Nazi’s to insurrectionist, women hating, white supremacists feels like a sideways move, but it also still works wonderfully. The bad guys in this film are just objectively foul people, there is no real redemption possible for any of them so seeing them come up against a 16 year old girl and losing horrifically is wildly entertaining. It also lets the film comment on some recent events, the term ‘insurrection’ isn’t just here for the fun of it, this film wants to make sure it portrays these assholes in the way they deserve. Sure, they aren’t nearly as captivating as the Nazis from the last movie (still hard to believe Kevin Smith was that damn good) but it’s also sad how relevant they are as villains, though it helps make them that much more awful.

Of course, it helps that The Wrath of Becky has the secret weapon of Lulu Wilson who really stepped up her game from the first movie. Sure, the original movie’s version of Becky was a lot of fun, she managed to sell you that a literal child could easily take on a ring of Nazis but this time Becky is not only able to take on more assholes than ever before but she’s also still dealing with some serious trauma, she’s absolutely done with the world and violence has become an outlet for her to deal with her feelings. It’s never really focussed on but the pain this character has gone through is absolutely palpable and you can see that she was just barely holding it together even before her life turned upside down again. She always has the upper hand, she’s always planning and she’s not going to take any shit. Last time it was a fight for survival, this time she’s John Wick but for fascist fuckwads and it’s absolutely glorious.

There are a few moments when The Wrath Of Becky absolute commitment to insanity can be a little much, some moments at the end do have you wondering just how stupid everyone she’s dealing with actually is, because no one thinks to just shoot the child that’s going to fuck them all up but those aren’t huge hurdles because by that point you’ve bought into this crazy little world. It also kind of sucks that the step-mother character from the last movie isn’t in this one, it feels a lost opportunity to keep her around and either strengthen their bond or just have more of a tie in to the original movie. It’s a small loss, it doesn’t actually impact this film in general but it’s a weird thing to look past since the first film made it pretty unambiguous that the new step-mother was alive so to never bring it up feels wrong.

Still, The Wrath Of Becky is another fantastic entry into this franchise. It delivers everything you want when you see a Becky film, namely a small child fucking up absolutely reprehensible adults in violent ways that are endlessly entertaining. It’s cathartic as hell, unapologetic and filled to the brim with the kind of kickass fun that we just need more of in cinema. The final scene of this film opens up a chance for a lot more Becky shenanigans and I hope they make as many of these things as Lulu Wilson will commit to, we need Becky now more than ever.