THE LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY— 3 STARS

If you discovered and enjoyed—as many have—2020’s Becky during the COVID-19 pandemic's streaming malaise and circled back for its even-better 2023 sequel, The Wrath of Becky, you have a strong, ferocious inclination for what’s coming with The Last Temptation of Becky. With its arrival in limited theatrical release, this sequel expands one of the most unexpected and satisfying indie film offerings into an official trilogy. This series has become gilded, not in golden box office riches, but in a shiny red varnish of the bloody good fun these movies have shed, squirted, and sprayed across so many of its frames for six years now.

LESSON #1: HOW DID THAT GIRL TURN OUT?— For those not tuned into this series’ frequency, the boisterously bonkers Becky, featuring a 13-year-old girl played by the remarkable charisma bomb discovery of Lulu Wilson, slayed our hearts and an entire squad of home-invading Neo Nazis, led by a villainous Kevin James playing it straight. After watching that kind of romp and ringer, one might burp a little hiccup of existential empathy to wonder something like, “I wonder how that kid turns out later in life.” We didn’t have to wait long for the conclusion of The Wrath of Becky three years later to observe her being recruited at the not-so-tender-anymore age of 16 to become a CIA agent after single-handedly dispatching Seann William Scott’s redneck domestic terrorist cell. The Last Temptation of Becky presents the next arc of her jaded maturation.

Now 19 and knocking on the door of her twenties, Becky Hooper has traded her colorful teenage threads for the business suit and required disguises of an international spy. Eschewing any interactive social life while living out of an apartment in New York City and dodging most of the required anger management counseling prescribed by her employer, Becky immerses herself in her work alongside her frequent teammate, Jordan Rigby (13 Reasons Why co-lead Brandon Flynn) and her returning recruiter and superior officer, Agent Montana (Kate Siegel of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House series). With her signature snarl, she plays her part until, well, she doesn’t want to.

LESSON #2: THE DWINDLING ODDS OF PLAN C— As we’ve seen in two raucous adventures before The Last Temptation of Becky, Becky Hooper is the kind of gal who doesn’t flinch from taking matters into her own deadly hands. Humorously, when this switch is flipped in her psyche, meticulously planned missions go out the window while she wings it to enact her announced “Plan C” moves. Like all progressions of a good plan, the odds of success without a body count or international incident dwindle with each letter of the plan after “A.” Somehow, like always and demonstrated in the film’s opening action sequence, Becky miraculously manages to come out on top and caked in someone else’s crimson.

Something hanging over Becky Hooper’s head in The Last Temptation of Becky since the first film is a unique key that used to be hidden in her childhood home and was recovered by the CIA. New intel reveals its origins and that it opens or engages something important at The Wolf’s Lair, Adolf Hitler’s former Polish hideout that has been turned into a tourist attraction. Purposely allowing the key to fall into enemy hands, the agency has tracked the man seeking it. Played by the national treasure that is Neil Patrick Harris and fashioning himself as a destined new general (an ideal graduation of sorts from Starship Troopers), Wilhelm Reuss is a traitorous American professor who has secretly assembled a small army and conducted lab experiments at The Wolf’s Lair in an effort to resurrect the Nazi Party and start the Fourth Reich.

LESSON #3: YOU HAD US AT “KILLING NAZIS”— Once Becky Hooper gets wind of these developments, especially with her past dealings with supremacist groups and personal connection to the key, she ideally, yet bluntly, inserts herself under the alias of a grad student hiking Europe into this next incursion, turning a reconnaissance mission into a revenge quest. With murderous glee, despite being outnumbered and without backup, this is her chance to kill Nazis, to which she winks, “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” Girl, you had us at killing Nazis, a pastime of freedom that will never go out of style.

Three films deep in this gushing artery festival with The Last Temptation of Becky, folks are primarily coming back for two key reasons. The first is a formidable foe. Like the old myth of Chimera and Bellerophon, a hero is only as good as their villain. Gracing the poster above the title character, Neil Patrick Harris is a deft get. He squeezes every dastardly drop of assumed superiority out of the Wilhelm Reuss role. Even within this movie’s campy conceits, his calculated, imposing presence comes from the actor’s ability to spew disgusting rhetoric with eerie casualness, a wavelength he’s been perfecting since Gone Girl. While not a top physical opponent by any means, Wilhelm’s constant disdain is more than enough to trigger the corresponding bloodlust required of our champion Becky Hooper.

To repeat what was said in this review space three years ago, Lulu Wilson deserves a jetpack for stardom. Her game enthusiasm, quippy narration, and crass appeal have not waned a bit with age or the increased physical capabilities to stay involved in the stunts. Playing Becky—someone utilizing anger as a force and a protagonist way stronger than the typical Final Girl—should be the role of a lifetime. Instead, it’s a crime Lulu Wilson’s talent has only been tapped for two other small movies and a smattering of single-episode TV parts during the half-dozen years of this mini franchise up to The Last Temptation of Becky. James Gunn, this is your DCU Harley Quinn if you want to go brighter and younger than bringing back Margot Robbie.

Alas, the second chief draw for The Last Temptation of Becky is the peppy and promised carnage. The Wrath of Becky director and screenwriter Matt Angel returns as the main storyteller for newly joining director Jenn Wexler (The Sacrifice Game) and keeps this movie’s parade of mayhem tight. For the most part, the urgency for killing and surprise twists wonderfully interrupt diversions for practical downtime, tedious backstories, or lengthy monologues. No one’s here for any sleep, bathroom breaks, realistic trap preparation, or pauses for sympathy. There are more Nazis to kill.

The sure-to-be-unheeded warning found in The Last Temptation of Becky stating, “Be careful with her; she’s got spunk,” only makes us want to be around this character more. Call it comfort food dipped in sardonic gore, but, like Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy or even the long-running British Up documentary series, cinema would be so lucky to be graced with as many future check-ins to our champion Becky Hooper as the years go on, especially if the creativity for killing and cheering stays this enjoyable. Give us 33-year-old Becky in her prime, honed by her younger angst. Bring us 48-year-old Becky still slaughtering thugs with perimenopause symptoms. Let her tear up a nursing home of bad guys when she’s in her 80s. Count us in for all of it.