If you were a fan of 2018’s Searching, the missing persons thriller told entirely from the point of view of a computer screen, then chances are you’ll fine enough to like about Missing, its found footage spiritual sequel. The co-editors from the first movie are now taking the reigns directing, and screenwriting, as we follow an 18-year-old June (Storm Reid) trying to track her mom’s (Nia Long) whereabouts after going overseas with her new boyfriend. It’s a reverse of the setup from Searching, the father desperate to locate his daughter, but under both scenarios the person doing the investigation comes to discover how little about their loved one they may have fully known, or at least how much they were keeping hidden. The creative constraints of keeping everything to a computer screen aren’t as limiting as you might think, especially with smart tech creeping into different aspects of home life and surveillance. The movie is well paced and still has a satisfying structure to its assembly of evidence and clues literally being in your face. The third act goes more than a bit overboard with outlandish twists upon outlandish twists, threatening to rip away whatever credibility the movie has earned to that point. It’s a bit much, but by that point most audience members will be onboard for the soap opera revelations. It’s not as fresh as Searching, nor does it have a lead performance as gripping as John Cho was as the frantic father, but Missing may be more of the same but that’s still enough to be a small-scale, fun, twisty little thriller to pass the time smoothly.

Nate’s Grade: B-