Do not watch Battle Royale II. Just because the director of Battle Royale did an excellent job adapting a novel, which I’ve never read and am assuming he did, doesn’t mean that he should have started to make a sequel. When that director died, his son succeeded him. Mistake begets mistakes. Battle Royale II has none of the excellent characterizations of its predecessor and ignores the foundations laid in the first movie. What did it take away from the first movie: the survivors were badass rebels willing to fight back. The paving is uneven at best: the majority of the class dies in the initial moments and then drags painfully until the end. Battle Royale II makes clunky parallels to ill-trained, ill-equipped children sent en masse to fight a war against people that are only fictional enemies and really allies. Battle Royale II was made soon after 9/11 so there are allusions to the children being like the Taliban and that being a good thing. One reviewer called this bold except it felt more like an empty action movie spouting empty platitudes and interchangeable unmemorable people rather than a subversive effort to flip the political narrative of the time. When trying to convey a subversive message, it is better to not root it in current political realities otherwise it can become clunky and moralistic at worst or satire at best. To be timeless and chilling, make it ordinary except for one chilling twist. Battle Royale II is all flash of the muzzle and blast of the bombs with no substance.