Morgan Spurlock has had a disappointing career since his seminal documentary broke out in 2004 and got us all choking on our McDonald’s. He made a couple of other films which were decent enough although nothing special (including the terrible official One Direction documentary.) It was announced he was going back to the well with a sequel in 2017 before he outed himself in the early stages of the #metoo movement and disappeared off the face of the earth. Following Spurloks confession distribution for the sequel which was going to be handled by YouTube Red (remember when they were thing) fell through the floor and I honestly questioned if the sequel would ever see the light of day beyond some 2017 festival screenings. 3 years after its premiere it was finally dumped on Amazon Prime Video UK with no warning whatsoever. I watched it straight away. What did the sequel deliver?
For better or worse it is a Spurlock documentary and has all the typical strengths and weaknesses of his work. His quest this time is to examine all the elements involved in opening his own chicken fast food restaurant. It is fast-paced, snappy engaging and amusing but does not really have any central argument or thesis in the same way the original film was primed to cause debate on several different levels. The sequel does have certain details and arguments it wants to bring up, but this is mostly limited to things the audience could have guessed given the subject matter. It is entertaining but regardless of Spurlocks confession I do not think the film would have made a massive impact if it had stuck to the original release schedule. 93 minutes of Spurlock learning to be a chicken farmer, debating whether the fast food industry has gotten healthier and hunting down the various things needed in order to open his restaurant is a fun enough distraction but nothing more.
Super Size Me 2 is an entertaining sequel that worth checking out if you have enjoyed any of Spurlocks previous work. That said its lack of any real through line or argument means that I don’t think the film would have had a massive impact regardless of it sitting on the shelf for two-and-a-half years. Whether or not Spurlock has been permanently blacklisted by Hollywood remains to be seen about I guess we will just have to wait and see.
6/10
A Little Bit Of Everything 