Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(2025)

This article shall be SPOILER FREE mainly because I never knew what the hell was going on anyway.

The plot wasn’t hard to follow so long as you knew this is a sequel and that’s not hard to surmise thanks to the giant steaming number 2 at the end of the title. I guess that’s a funny way to say you should probably see the first film before this one but that might depend on how much you care. If you don’t, this stands alone alright. I’ll just say it helps to understand that the animatronics from the first movie are inhabited by ghost children. That’s not a spoiler. They’re talking about it the whole time in the first film and a bit in the second.

Also, side question on the first film: Why isn’t the main character suspected of murder yet? Several people have been inexplicably killed around him and he’s clearly connected in some way every time.

Time for a story problem!

Professor Popinjay took a group of people to see this film on not quite opening day. Five people were middle schoolers. Six were high schoolers. Of these groups, 2 of them were his own kids. Add to these groups his adult nephew. How many people total did Professor Popinjay take to see Five Nights at Freddy’s 2? Show your work.

If you remember my non-review for the first FNAF installment, you might recall the theater was a riot. I think I only had two or three kids there. It didn’t matter. The rest of their friends were there anyway.

For the sequel, I was personally responsible for bringing the riot, my kids, their friends, and close relations. I collect movie passes and I had accumulated a bevy. Special thanks to my wife for driving a second minivan full of rabble rousers to get them all there.

There was hardly a dull moment, and when there was, someone was usually talking loudly about something completely unrelated to the movie, usually obscuring some major plot point. For the shocking reveals that this audience actually did catch, the details were usually exclaimed in such unison as to hit the ear as a solitary sound. I’ll make up an example here:

Spoomples (on screen): I only led you to believe that my name was Spoomples but I am in fact, DOUG MAROO! (Slaps walrus)

Audience: (in unison) GASP! OH MY GAWD! THAT’S DOUG MAROO! WE THOUGHT HE WAS SPOOMPLES THIS WHOLE TIME BUT IT’S DOUG! THAT’S WHAT HE JUST SAID! HE SAID HIS NAME WAS DOUG MAROO AND THEN HE SLAPPED A WALRUS JUST LIKE DOUG MAROO WOULD DO! AAAAAAAAAA!

(Aaaaaaaand… SCENE!)

Don’t worry. There’s no one in the movie named Doug Maroo or Spoomples and no walruses are harmed.

I don’t know how the audience spoke in unison like that. I suspect they were supplied a script, a cue, and a small bag of gold by the actors in the film like they do in Kabuki theater.

When it wasn’t the exclamation of shocking revelations from the audience I brought with me, it was a general milieu of meme references and bizarre random slogans that seemed to make everyone laugh. I had no clue about most of it but I was glad everyone was having a good time. Maybe later we’ll actually watch the movie, not just scream at the screen for 2 hours. I probably sound like I’m complaining, but it was a lot of fun.

If that scene is not your cup of tea, I totally get it. It’s a mad house and it’s not for everyone. I have five kids. I live in a mad house. I’m used to this. I’ll probably watch it again at home after the kids go to bed. I may as well. I should be an expert by now considering how much FNAF stuff my kids have stuck into my face. It’s kind of amazing how into it they are, considering the first Five Nights at Freddy’s game came out before most of them could talk and a couple weren’t even born yet. But hey, SpongeBob came out while I was in high school and he’s still going strong.

So let’s talk about the movie itself without getting into deep spoiling detail. The plot was easy to follow though I imagine I might be confused by some things if I hadn’t seen the first film. They tried to recap in a non-tacked on way but I don’t think it was necessarily satisfactory for newcomers. I found it to be an enjoyable plot with lots of twists and turns and revelations I shan’t get into.

It wasn’t without humor but could have used a few heaps more. The last thing we want is 2 hours of humorless lore dump. I’m looking at you, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Air Bender movie (2010).

There was a TON of fan service. Not anime style fan service. Jeez. Just a lot of stuff done for super fans that only super fans would know about and appreciate. There was so much of this it got kind of distracting but the film knows who its audience is and wasn’t really catering to me specifically. That’s okay. If I was truly interested I’d watch Matpat’s four hour iceberg recap and turn myself into a super fan. I’m probably not going to do that.

Yet, just like a 3D movie that does a bunch of 3D gimmicks to take advantage of the 3D (Spy Kids 3D: Game Over) or a franchise that reboots decades later and does more for the sake of nostalgia and completely misses the point of why we liked the first films (Jurassic World: Dominion) I feel like the story of FNAF 2 suffers a bit by trying to cram just so much fan service into this film. That’s just my opinion though. What do I know?

To say nothing of the movies, I know I’m to a point with the overwhelming plethora of animatronic characters from the games, when I see a bear character, I just keep my mouth shut instead of exclaiming “Hey! It’s Freddy!” because invariably one of my children will admonish me and shout “You MORON! Do you not SEE the elongated arms and extra segments in his fingers!?! THIS, you cancerous polyp on the anus of society, is obviously “FALSE Freddy” from the currently unreleased Popgoes Evergreen game! Don’t you know, ANYTHING!?! I swear! It’s like living with a complete ignoramous!”

It’s a painful and solitary existence I lead. Okay, so my kids don’t actually talk to me like this but this is what it feels like sometimes. I couldn’t help but feel the movie was talking to me the same way. The sheer variety of characters and animatronics, each with an obviously deep and multifaceted backstory as indicated by the chatter that occurred every time someone new showed up on screen… it’s already overwhelming in the games and it’s well on its way to becoming overwhelming in the films.

But just like the first film, it was fun to enjoy other people enjoying this in the theater and it will be fun to watch it again later in the comfort of my own home where we can pause it and the kids can fill me in on Aaaaaaaaaaallllll the lore. Oh, that this day should come! Why doth it tarry?