I think Michael & Laurie not interacting could’ve been better remedied by having a central character stand-in for her, which appeared to be Hawkins until he was also sidelined. That was basically my first and biggest gripe actually with this film, that there was no central protagonist to get behind. The movie just hops around between legacy characters without ever settling on one, which leads to it feeling as disjointed as it does.
We’re led to believe it’s Hawkins as the movie begins since we spend 10 minutes with him and his backstory in connection to Michael, and we’re going to follow his journey of stopping him and getting redemption.
Except no, because he’s sidelined in the hospital.
So okay, next would have to be Laurie and her family and their journey to stop Michael, right?
Except no, they have very little to do with him or even have much to do in general and they’re sidelined for most of the film.
The doctor and nurse couple we meet afterwards, they end up pairing up with some legacy character survivors, whose entire value is being in the first Halloween movie, and maybe we’ll join them in their journey to stop Michael?
Except no, they’re mostly just mindless cannon fodder for Michael to tear through.
One of them survives so maybe the movie is about he- no she just disappears after surviving.
Maybe it’s the gay couple in Michael’s house? Maybe they have a special role? No, they exist just to present Michael’s house.
Tommy winds up being the main candidate for the protagonist, but he winds up just being a rallying force for the townspeople to push key plot events forward, while eventually morphing more into an antagonist that Laurie’s family has to deal with.
With no central antagonist to anchor the film, it ends up feeling like a bunch of short stories loosely stitched together with minor characters. It doesn’t push a plot or narrative forward, so there doesn’t feel like any sort of meaningful progression towards the end of this film or even the next one. The movie finally decides that Laurie’s family are our central protagonists right at the end, only because we need Michael to kill Karen so there’s atleast something building towards Ends.