‘The Last Temptation of Becky’ Review: This Badass Antifa Franchise Deserves a Bigger Budget

The older you get, the more you realize life is about the simple pleasures. An uninterrupted, full night of sleep. A tall glass of iced tea on a hot summer’s day. An introductory paragraph that seamlessly transitions into an amusing tonal shift. Lulu Wilson decapitating Nazis. Stuff like that.Lulu Wilson has turned killing white supremacists into a cottage industry, and in the “Becky” movies, business is booming. In the original “Becky” (2020), she slaughtered escaped neo-Nazi convicts led by a surprisingly sinister Kevin James. In “The Wrath of Becky” (2023), she laid a one-woman siege against the not-quite-Proud Boys, led by a surprisingly sinister Seann William Scott. “Becky” was great, “The Wrath of Becky” was even better, and now “The Last Temptation of Becky” pits her against a predictably sinister Neil Patrick Harris as a Nazi mad scientist with a scheme to take over the world. The new film is, like the previous installments, a glorious Antifa power fantasy in an era when fascists are increasingly comfortable poking their heads out from the sewage pile of history (where they belong). Jenn Wexler’s film, co-written by Matt Angel, moves the “Becky” franchise from low-budget grindhouse territory into the superspy genre, and it’s as ecstatically entertaining as ever. The only downside is that “The Last Temptation of Becky’s” ambitions aren’t matched by its budget. The genre shift makes sense. James Bond killed oodles of billionaires, and audiences pumped their fists in triumph. Becky kills white supremacists, and we do the same — except Becky does her job without Bond’s raging misogyny and repeated sexual assaults. So while these “Becky” films lack the Bond franchise’s spectacle, in some ways they’re more satisfying overall. It helps that, while the Bond movies enlisted larger-than-life character actors to make their villains seem like genuine threats, the “Becky” films recruit famous comedians to play the bad guys. This subtly emasculates the villains from frame one, showing that bigots and fascists are only pretending to be scary men, which ironically makes them more dangerous, since they have to go to more disturbing lengths to achieve and maintain their power. Bond’s villains are allowed to look cool. Becky’s villains don’t deserve dignity, yet they’re still threatening. There’s a lot of anger in “The Last Temptation of Becky.” It’s well-placed and exceptionally performed. Wilson plays the snarky teenager with Regina George’s vicious dialogue and Jason Voorhees’ homicidal mania. She was recruited into the CIA at the end of the previous movie because the agency figured that if she’s going to kill bad guys anyway, she might as well have a license to do it. Yet even as Becky becomes larger-than-life, Wilson infuses her with so much emotional depth that it looks like she’s getting even more out of the violence than the audience. She’s not only kicking ass because it’s the right thing to do; she’s also compelled by a desperate need for catharsis. In “The Last Temptation of Becky,” she’s dispatched to a secret, undiscovered bunker in Europe, where Wilhelm Reuss (Harris) and his family have set up a little bed-and-breakfast, complete with a tourist-friendly standee of Adolf Hitler. Becky’s cover gets blown almost immediately, and soon she’s fighting a small army of Nazis in the woods, killing them in memorably ridiculous ways while writing little poems about it. Everyone needs a creative outlet, I suppose. Becky should have her own zine. The small army is, sadly, too small. The “Becky” movies have never been expensive productions, but unlike the first two, “The Last Temptation” cries out for showstopping audacity. The whole world is at stake this time, but there are only a half-dozen bad guys out to get her. That’s a shame. Not every movie has to be “John Wick,” obviously. If anything, the choreography in “Becky” is pleasingly rougher than that of the other wall-to-wall revenge franchise. In Wick’s universe, the nonstop action sequences only seem difficult because they take forever, not because he actually gets exhausted. Becky’s fights may not be as elaborate, but they hit hard, too. Still, “The Last Temptation of Becky” is clearly supposed to be a dramatic escalation in stakes, and it doesn’t always read that way. If I could go back in time and give Wexler more money, I would, but I don’t have a time machine, and I’m a film critic, so I don’t have any money. What I do have is an immense appreciation for these “Becky” movies and their enthusiastic rage at worthy targets. Lulu Wilson is the hero we need, and she keeps turning up every few years to inspire us. We may not be able to punch out supervillains, but we can fight the good fight against very real fascists in our own, hopefully nonviolent, way. And just like Becky, we can — and should — be snarky a-holes about it the whole damn time. “The Last Temptation of Becky” premieres in theaters on Nov. 4, 2026.