MovieChat Forums > Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 (2025) Discussion > Early Reactions to Horizon 2 = not good

Early Reactions to Horizon 2 = not good

posted 5 months ago by redban (6776)
7 replies | jump to latest

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2024/09/07/critics-rip-kevin-costners-horizon-chapter-2-in-first-reviews-after-venice-debut/

The movie premiered at Venice Film Festival on Saturday. They say this movie isn't good

Some publications already released reviews

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/horizon-an-american-saga-chapter-2-review-kevin-costner-1235993863/

They say the movie has the same issues as Part 1: too long, not enough payoff, jagged editing, and cliche production values. They say Part 2 needed a montage or something to allow viewers to catch up / refresh themselves with what happened in Part 1. The romance between Sienna Miller and Sam Worthington moves too slowly. The reviewer thinks Horizon should've been a streaming series

https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/horizon-an-american-saga-chapter-2-review-kevin-costner-1236121960/

This review says Part 2 is "just as unwiedly and bewilderingly scattershot as the first." They say the movie is too long, and it needed a recap of Part 1 for the audience to follow. The best plot strands are the one with Luke Wilson and the one with Sienna Miller / Sam Worthington. The story with Costner's character sucks. The movie has nice cinematography, and there are some moments. But the movie's high-spots occur in between some long, dull stretches. The ending also has a montage for Part 3, similar to the end of Part 1. Like Hollywood Reporter's review, they say Horizon would've been great as streaming TV series

https://www.thewrap.com/horizon-2-review-kevin-costner-american-saga/

Like the above 2 reviews, they say Part 2 suffers the same problem as Part 1, with a poor storytelling rhythm. There are some good moments, but they're too few and far between. This review notes that two of the stories actually connect in Part 2: the wagons (Luke Wilson) and Sienna Miller + her daughter meet each other. The British girl in the wagon story apparently gets raped too.

[–] maximmm (3408) 5 months ago

Actually, no - they all say it's better than part 1, but still lacking.

So, if you thought part 1 was good, then part 2 is apparently a slight improvement.

[–] redban (6776) 5 months ago

Nobody thought Part 1 was good, so that's not saying much

The critic for the Hollywood Reporter says Part 2, while bad, is more fun to watch than Part 1. But I don't think anyone else says the same. Variety and TheWrap's reviews don't seem to indicate that Part 2 is a noticeable improvement.

[–] Aylmer (628) 5 months ago

Part 1 had a good movie buried in there somewhere but it felt so overly stretched out that it seemed more suitable to be a TV show pilot than an actual movie. Watching it in the theater was a total chore, and the end of the movie was utterly unsatisfying. The pilot for "Battlestar Galactica" actually told a closed-story (or closed enough) that it actually felt like a movie. Horizon had a lot of setup and time devoted to uninteresting characters that you felt at least SOME of it had to pay off eventually, but nope, it just ends.

[–] maximmm (3408) 5 months ago

no wonder if ended with 'here is what's coming up next' trailer of the upcoming sequels -
I do think this was a horrible idea - it worked with the Avengers: Infinity War, but only because the cliffhanger was so dramatic - and when it came out, nobody knew (as far as I'm aware) that it was going to be a 2 part series.

The problem with Costner's 4 parter is that it's not even a 2 part film - so even if you watch part 2, it's not certain that you'll get any of the storylines tied up. If it was a 2-part film, people who saw the first film - especially after streaming it online, might be more inclined to see part 2 to see how things unfold, but with part 2 still not being the end..... people are more likely to want to end until part 4 comes out, which might never come out at this point.

All in all.... horrible, horrible planning. Costner basically screwed up in a major way. Like many have previously said - he should have made a TV series instead.

[–] Aylmer (628) 5 months ago

All I can chalk it up to is out-of-touch mentality (which I share as a Gen-Xer) that movies count and TV is just disposable content. People like us (and Costner) don't want to accept that times have changed and people are binge-watching TV series on their couches and not going out to the cinema to see something that has similar production values, especially if the cost is high (which it is) and you have to space out the viewing of episodes by months/years.

There used to be a clear qualitative delineation between movies and TV, with movies containing bigger stars, grander production values, and were shot in widescreen. Nowadays there is little distinction with some TV shows having even larger effects budgets than a lot of theatrical movies, plus movie and TV stars go back and forth all the time. "TV" (as in streaming content) is more disposable and less historically relevant than (theatrical) movies, but it has clearly won the war at this point in terms of what attracts eyeballs. When it comes to money, it's a similar story but still not so clear to me how streaming content actually produces profits when a lot of the time the movies on streaming are actually more like ads to entice audiences to subscribe endlessly to some service.

Oh well, that's the world we live in, and it becomes all the more clear every time an enterprise like this totally bombs. If it was done a lot better, it may have changed the metric, but that's still a big 'may'.

[–] maximmm (3408) 5 months ago

streaming services make money via subscriptions - in the same way that cable tv used to make money and fund films/tv shows. Mind you, cable tv also made money via ads - and we are seeing same thing when it comes to streaming services - you pay to watch ads - lol
It's interesting that we used to pay to watch ads on cable TV, but now people are starting to ponder, are we not paying to watch stuff without ads? ^^

Otherwise, you are kind of right - but do keep in mind, the idea of making a 4 part film is rather new - especially one where each film doesn't have a completed story arc - he's basically making a TV series and putting it on big screen, with 6 months-wait between each episode. This is the dumbest idea ever.

[–] TandyMan (11349) 5 months ago

so... not a satisfying wrap up to anything we've seen already. holy hell.