Review of Extraction 2 (2023) by Soulwarfare — 17 Jun 2023

I loved Chris Hemsworth in Extraction (2020). Getting to see him outside of Marvel in a fun action movie, was enjoyable. However, it was a very flawed movie that felt lacking compared to something like 'John Wick'. Still, I saw potential in a sequel so I was not surprised when Extraction 2 was announced. Does this improve on its predecessor or continue to have the same problems?

Let's start with why people are watching this: the action. The action scenes are still a blast to watch! The violent and brutal fist fights with the swift gunplay are all incredibly well choreographed. The sequel also tops the first movie's one-shot action sequence by being 21 minutes. It isn't just longer though, it is well-connected and more awesome as well. The prison sequence is phenomenal with how tense it is and how our main character punches his way out. Chris Hemsworth continues to be charismatic and charming as our main character: Tyler Rake. Chris does a lot of his own stunts and it clearly shows in the excellent action scenes. He also gets to do more emotional moments as well making his character a little more interesting. Golshifteh Farahani returns as Nik, a mercenary ally of Tyler, and she gets a lot more to do this time. She has her fight scenes that are great to watch as well.

One element that is improved is Tyler Rake having more characterization. We barely knew or cared about him in the first movie but this time we get to know more about him through his past and interactions with others. It also helps that this mission feels more meaningful to his character as he is having to extract someone more connected to him. His friendship with Nik is also explored a bit more. It feels like there is more of a stake this time which makes me care more about what is going on in the story. The villain is also more threatening this time with him physically hunting down our characters and actually fighting our main character. However, this movie doesn't improve upon everything. The plot is still predictable and bare bone as the first movie was. Nothing interesting occurs whatsoever in the plot; it hits all the cliché beats you would expect. There is also some shaky cam in some of the sequences which is a little distracting when it mostly maintains a clean stable shot during the action. Some of the action scenes can feel a bit questionable as well. For example, the main character stands completely still but the enemy misses or the main character not taking proper cover while being shot at. There is also a fair amount of bad CGI such as the helicopters which is very noticeable. One thing Chris got to do in Extraction 1 was punch a kid. Unfortunately, he does not do that in the second film but there is definitely a kid that deserved a punch from him.

Overall, this is a big improvement. I enjoyed this sequel a lot and if the next entry continues to improve even further, then I am 100% watching the 3rd one. Hopefully, he gets to punch a kid again though.