Becky Returns to Poland: Lulu Wilson Faces Neil Patrick Harris's Fascist Innkeeper

Neil Patrick Harris plays a menacing innkeeper with outright fascist plans in The Last Temptation of Becky, the third installment of the revenge franchise, now in theaters. It runs 1 hour 29 minutes and carries no rating.

Directed by Jenn Wexler, the film sends Becky — played again by Lulu Wilson, at least fun to watch — to Poland. The prized key that brought neo-Nazis to her doorstep in the first film turns out to have historical significance. So off she goes, taking up residence at the site of Hitler's former Eastern Front headquarters during World War II. She's in the C.I.A. now, evidently a promotion from the family trauma business.

Who is Becky, and why does she keep killing?

The original Becky and its better sequel, The Wrath of Becky, established the titular avenger as the Kevin McCallister of alt-right men — a one-woman army dispatching them with delight for their roles in her parents' death when she was 13. That's the franchise's engine, and it hasn't changed much.

The new setting gives her new toys, a new name and new Nazi wordplay. One gag on offer: "Is that Reich?" The setup, per the review, has shades of Melissa McCarthy's Spy — the undercover farce, not the gore-soaked part.

Does the trilogy still work?

Not really. Wexler's film never quite reconciles its Scooby Doo sensibility with the ugliness of its subject matter, and the kills feel like empty spectacles. The reviewer's verdict is blunt: there's more satisfaction from killing Nazis in a video game.

Harris, committed to the role, underscores the trilogy's tendency to mistake an actor's mere presence for the joke. The reviewer allows one consolation: "We have come a long way from Kevin James as a Nazi, at least." Progress, of a sort.

The sharper criticism lands on Becky herself. She remains less a person than a projection — a surface on which audiences can project their own politics. The film's most developed character, the review argues, is the viewer's own political ideology.

That's a problem for a franchise that has now run to three films. Genre revenge fantasies tend to need an avenger with an interior life, not just a body count and a catchphrase. How much pleasure you take in watching a one-woman army blow up and hack fascists to pieces will determine your initial enthusiasm for this installment, the review notes — which is a polite way of saying the appeal is narrow.

What's next for the franchise?

Nothing is announced in the source. But with the key's historical significance now spent and the Poland excursion behind her, the series faces a choice: give Becky a personality, or keep casting villains and hoping charisma does the rest.