By Dan Skip Allen

One of my favorite protagonists over the last handful of years in film has been Becky Hoover (Lulu Wilson). She starts out as this rebellious teenager, 13, grieving her mothers loss, who moves to a new home with her father, Jeff, played by Joel McHale in the first “Becky”. She ends up running afoul of a gang of men led by an escaped neo-Nazi prisoner Dominick played by Kevin James (Grown Ups) who takes her family hostage because he’s looking for something at their lake house that they’re staying at. In “The Wrath of Becky”, after a tragedy, she ends up living with a foster mother, Elena, now 16, and another group of men, the Noble Men, led by Darryl Jr. (Seann William Scott) son of his mother, Darryl Sr. (Jill Larson), who is a nasty lady. 

Becky has a skill set of turning things in her vicinity to her advantage and using her intelligence to help make up for her lack of strength and power. She’s a very ingenious girl at turning disadvantages into positives in the first 2 Becky films. Scenes involving pencils in the eyes and characters getting burnt alive are very resident of one of my favorite films, “First Blood”. There is an action genre feel to these movies, but feel they also lend themselves towards the horror genre. Mainly because of the blood and guts that are spilled throughout the first 2 films in this now trilogy. Yes, you read this right, “The Last Temptation of Becky” is coming out soon, and Becky Hoover has now become a CIA Agent. As a 19 year old, she’s up to her old tricks again.

At the end of the second Becky film, there was something that alluded to the main villain of the third film in the franchise. That villain being Nazi’s. She has been an agent for the CIA for a very short time. She was recruited at the end of the second movie by Agent Montana (Katie Siegel). She’s her handler as she’s now a newly minted agent. Just to get some references for who this character is, the story starts with her on a mission in a bar as the team is trying to get a briefcase from a man at the bar. The man snuffs out the operation and Becky in her Red dress says “It’s time for plan C” and she goes into action to get the briefcase from the man by assaulting him and caving his face in. This gets her in trouble with her bosses even though she accomplished the goal of the mission, which is getting the case and its contents. 

The key to the Becky franchise, no pun intended, is a “key” that can unlock something that will potentially start the Fourth Reich. This key is a macguffin for the trilogy. This time around, Becky is given one last chance by her bosses at the CIA. She is to infiltrate “The Wolf’s Lair” an area 3,000 miles north of Warsaw, Poland, where followers of Hitler have journeyed to accomplish their mission. She is posing as a college age woman studying the third Reich and Nazi Germany as a whole. She’s staying at the Wolf’s Lair Hotel with older gentlemen. The hotel is run by a woman, Helga Reuss (Cathrine Walker), and her two children, Otto and Louisa (Noah Leggott, Aoife Hughes). They are the family of Yeohan Ruess (Neil Patrick Harris), the man who is in charge of the plan to start the Fourth Reich using the key. He is a chip off the old block regarding a follower of Hitler.

If you think this is going to be a funny film, then you’re right. Nowadays, we as a society laugh at neo-Nazis because what most people perceive as trying to rule the world and creating a master race is rather preposterous. There are a lot of moments in the Becky franchise that are funny, and this film is no exception. The kills are just as crazy and the various ways Becky meets out her wrath and punishment are as funny as I’ve seen in this franchise. She uses some of the trinkets her handler played by Siegel gave her. Poison, poisonous darts, and other things come in handy as she’s over her head facing off against these neo-Nazis. This is what we love about this franchise. How Becky is going to overcome the odds she’s up against.

An evil doctor, Fredrick Albert Wilhelm (James Urbaniak), is a key to the experiment of bringing the Fuhrer, Aldolf Hitler, back to life in “Operation Wolf”. This experiment uses blood to help bring him back to life, but it’s a very complicated experiment. Once Becky finds out what their plan is, she tries to reach out to Agent Montana to get help, but she finds out she’s up against more than she realizes. Her previous insubordination in the CIA has come back to haunt her. She doesn’t have the allies she thought she had. Her anger is something she can’t control as she has found information that has made it hard to stop. She sees red regarding the people she deems guilty of the previous infraction of killing her father in “Becky”.

The director of this film, Jennifer Wexler, uses a framing device spliced together with the main narrative of the movie. She and Matt Angel wrote the script for this film, continuing what Angel and Susanne Coote started with the last film. The framing device gives viewers of this movie some reference to the original film in the trilogy. Also, it gave Becky a backstory regarding her mindset before joining the CIA.she had to go through a series of tests before joining the CIA to determine if she is of a right mind and body. It’s a rigorous job she has gotten recruited for. With her past traumas that can get in the way of being a productive and good team player in the agency. 

Lulu Wilson is a young actress I haven’t seen in much other than some horror sequels. And a recently raunchy comedy “Pizza Movie” that came out earlier this year. It got mixed reviews, but her claim to fame is the “Becky Trilogy”. She is Becky Hoover as far as I’m concerned. With the first movie and each subsequent film in the franchise, she gets more and more comfortable on screen. She takes what she’s given in the script and uses it to her advantage. I love the Rambo references and in the newer series “Sizu” films. Wilson takes what could be a throwaway character and makes it her own. She has embraced all the idiosyncrasies that the writers and the directors have given her in this trilogy. Even pushing the limits of what they can and can’t do similar to the “John Wick” franchise. I love her as this character, and I hope to see her in more of these movies going forward. She is as amazing as this character. 

There are a lot of franchises these days in movies. Some are better than others. Some that start good and finish bad like “The Fast and Furious Franchise” others have stops and starts like “The Mission Impossible Franchise” even some that get rebooted like “The Strangers Franchise” that needed a fresh new look and feel to it. “The Becky Franchise” isn’t going to be considered the best, but it’s far from the worst either. It has some great themes teenage girls can relate to. People who have faced some tragedy in their lives regarding a lost family member could also relate to this franchise, but it has action and neo-Nazis which are always fun to see get killed in bloody and horrific ways. It’s a revenge trilogy. How can you not like that about these fun action movies? In a world full of films that take themselves too seriously, these movies don’t. They are trying to be taken that way. They’re just mindless fun action comedies with some good themes. 

I have enjoyed the two main villains in the first two, Becky films. Kevin James and Seann William Scott are known for their careers as comedic actors. They are meant to be funny in these movies, but inevitably, they become funny. Their whole persona is laughable, to say the least. Patrick Harris is another actor who’s known as a dramatic actor and song and dance man. The writers and directors have purposely cast against type with the villains of the three films. So they aren’t taken seriously. That is the point of the trilogy. You’re supposed to laugh at how absurd these characters are. Their whole persona is preposterous and easy to laugh at. That’s what makes these villains so good. These three, including Patrick Harris, won’t be considered some of the greatest villains of all time, but I think they were terrific for what they were trying to accomplish as villainous characters. Patrick Harris is way over the top, which is exactly the way he should be in this movie.

“The Last Temptation of Becky” is a great continuation of one of my favorite recent film franchises. Lulu Wilson and company bring the whole story that began in a small indie action revenge thriller to an end, which is its ultimate goal. The cast in this third film are all over the top and funny to watch. The action and bloody kills are as creative and as amazing as ever. The story the writers gave this character added to the story from the past and expanded on it in a great way. I was glad to see Wilson’s character get a bigger backstory and everything tie together nicely in the trilogy. If you want a mindless action franchise with a great female protagonist, then this is the one for you. It’s a throwback to some of the great franchises of the past. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s a good thing. This was a fun continuation of the story and character that came before. I can’t wait to see where she goes from here.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars