Earlier this year a Half-Life fan fiction by a nine year old spawned a most ingenious machinma from Canandian filmmaker Djy1991. The film gained unanimous acclaim and delight dozens – nay, severals - of internet viewers. That film was Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. Its strong use of self-mockery, text, music and narration combined to create a masterpiece of comedic filmmaking.

So I think we’ve established that I really liked the first film, which is why it pains me so to say that the sequel, Half-Life: What Has To Be Done fails to live up to its processor.

What Has To Be Done picks up where the previous film left off, with John Freeman (who was Gordon Freeman’s brother) on a quest to (*spoiler*) avenge his brother’s death and save humanity from the final boss. This isn’t to be confused with the plot of the first film in which John Freeman was on a quest to save his brother and save humanity from the final boss. The problem with the sequel is that is just re-treads everything that the first film did, but with much less success and relies too much on the brilliantly horrible sentence structure of the story on which the film is based.

The unique writing style of Squirrel King is present, but everything else is missing. The narrator makes little use of exaggerated performance and it sounds quite flat. Not helping this is the use of music. The first film made tremendous use of music to abruptly shift atmosphere and enhance the overall silliness. But in What Has To Be Done, the shifts in music aren’t pronounced enough or used to any real effect, so it becomes little more than background noise. There’s also a complete lack of pacing. While Full Life Consequences actually had a three act structure, What Has To Be Done just throws a barrage of silliness at you. In the end, there’s just such a lack of enthusiasm that made the original so infectiously enjoyable.

What Has To Be Done even makes multiple references to the first film, which is usually a way of reminding the audience of how much they enjoyed the original. (See The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.) Actually, comparing this film to The Matrix is quite appropriate. Both of the original films were brilliant in every way, with each element working together to create an incredibly memorable experience. And then along comes the sequels which try to resolve a story which didn’t really need to resolving and forgets why the originals were so good in the first place. I like to believe in the theory that there are an infinite amount of parallel universes in which every possible outcome occurs. Not only does this mean that paradox-free time travel would be possible but it also means that somewhere in a parallel universe there were never any sequels to The Matrix or Half-Life: Full Life Consequences.

It’s not that film is horribly bad – it’s definitely watchable and some parts are enjoyable, but doesn’t further the series in any meaningful way. I’m still incredible grateful to Djy1991 (and the Wachowski’s too!) for creating a magnificent film which I enjoyed immeasurably, but I just wish that they’d left their creations alone so that I could forever bask untainted perfection.

Oh, and this one also ends with a cliffhanger. If there’s to be another film let us hope that we see a return to form for the series and not The Matrix Revolutions.