It Takes Two To Make A Thing Go Okay or; The Baby Assassins 2 Babies Review

A note from the writer: Howdy, howdy, howdy, everybody! Hope whoever is reading this is having a blast doing whatever it is you do. What am I doing these days? Well, I’m still writing for the folks over at Hyperreal Film Club, and through their never-ending grace, I’ve been granted the opportunity to attend this year’s Fantastic Fest, held here in the heart of Austin, Texas! If you follow me on Letterboxd (or simply follow me in real life without my knowledge), you’d probably get the impression that this wouldn’t be my first rodeo at a film festival. The truth is, dear readers and stalkers, is that this is more or less is my first shot at a big-league festival—shoutout to the folks over at the Boomtown Film Festival who gave me true first run in organized movie-watching shenanigans—so again, a special thanks to the angels at Hyperreal, especially the editorial team that continues to make my writing look so, so good! Also, let’s give a shout out to the one thing that powers all of us to do stuff like this: the movies!

Anyway, my first taste of press fest life came in the 8:00 a.m. premiere of Baby Assassins 2 Babies, which screened in a quiet theater at Alamo Drafthouse’s South Lamar location. With just myself and about five other press professionals in the theater, we settled in for… well, at the moment, I actually went in completely blind to this thing so I had no idea what I was settling in for! Still, despite this being a sequel to the 2021 film, Baby Assassins, I quickly discovered that one didn’t really have to see the first to get on the wavelength of this new entry.

The setup is pretty simple: Chisato (Akari Takaishi) and Mahiro (Saori Izawa) are two teenage girls living in Japan. The catch is, as the title suggests, these kids are also highly trained and very deadly assassins for pay. There’s likely a bit more at play in the first entry but the sequel doesn’t assume that viewers have seen the first film. In a pseudo-“Previously On” sequence in Baby Assassins 2’s intro, all we see is a bunch of footage from the first movie of Chisato and Mahiro blasting people away. With that, I truly felt like I had seen the first film.

In this new entry, we find our two young heroines bored out of their minds. They hang out in their distractingly cluttered apartment, they make at-home snow cones, and generally just shoot the shit. In fact, a lot of Baby Assassins 2 seems to focus on people just chit-chatting with each other. We also get introduced to two young punks, Makoto (Tatsuomi Hamada) and Yuri (Joey Iwanaga). These guys are a lot like Chisato and Mahiro: they make small talk about everyday things and they’re not too bad at blasting fools. Four peas in pod, these kids! The kick is that Makoto and Yuri are small fry in this world of assassins, and to make their mark, they choose Chisato and Mahiro as their targets to put them in the spotlight.

While one would think Baby Assassins 2 would let these two pairs duke it out throughout its brisk 90-minute runtime, director and writer Yugo Sakamoto instead takes his sweet time to get to much, if any, blasting. Instead, audiences hang out with these two pairs as they spin their wheels until they finally meet up in the third act. This decision, while pretty surprising, is two-sided. Sakamoto hits on some funny banter and his two pairs of actors get their own unique moments of humor, but for the most part, these characters, especially Chisato and Mahiro, are a bit of a drag. Not that the actresses don’t try to add all the energy they can. However, their dual performances lean pretty strong on a sort of “anime acting” that is constantly over-the-top and a bit aggravating. High energy is great, but there’s definitely a fine line to discover for actors, and here it seems Takahashi and Izawa can’t quite find it. As their counterparts, Hamada and Iwanaga fare a bit better in finding even ground, but that may be due to how Sakamoto approaches their characters with less bombast and more genuine friendship.

That being said, when Baby Assassins 2 finally decides to let loose in its few action scenes, Sakamoto and his performers are more than able to pull their weight. Where they can’t quite find consistent power in their lines, Takahashi and Izawa make kicking ass look natural as they flip, dive, kick, and spin their way around baddies. Hamada and Iwanaga are also game to get their hands dirty and the moment these two pairs of kiddie killers-for-hire meet up, Baby Assassins 2 reaches the quirky and memorable power promised by its title. Too bad there’s just not enough action scenes to enjoy in this entry.

Even with my lack of knowledge of the franchise there’s a feeling that nags at me that makes Baby Assassins 2 feel like a B-side. While we get introduced to new rivals, there isn’t much at stake. That could be by design—after all, I’ve already touched on Sakamoto’s “hang out” approach to this story of kid assassins, but here nothing much seems to feel expansive in any shape or form. Even the main characters relationships seem at a standstill, despite a few moments in the story that seem aimed at testing their bonds. I’m probably asking too much from a movie called Baby Assassins 2 Babies, but still, a little character growth never hurt anybody!

While far from perfect, Baby Assassins 2 Babies still ends up as a surprisingly ideal 8:00 a.m. movie. While I was fighting off sleepiness and a growling stomach (sorry to the five other people in the theater), there was some good crowd energy for such an early morning. Not every movie can be a champion, but not every movie can be a “fun at 8 AM movie,” either. That’s a pretty killer achievement for Baby Assassins 2 Babies, even if it doesn’t always hit the target.