Extraction 2 Review
HALF OF THIS MOVIE WAS GOOD...
PHONES REACHED FOR - 4
OH SHIT MOMENTS - 8
TOTAL MINUTES - 111
TOTAL GOOD MINUTES - 52
8/4 = 4
52/111 = 0.47
HALF OF THIS MOVIE WAS GOOD...
First of all if you're reading anything like this you better have watched the movie already. Don't blame me for SPOILING it when you know I can't talk about a movie without the details.
The first Extraction was a thrill. The endless fight scenes and brutal kills in a foreign country by a guy we all wish we could be made it so that I couldn't reach for my phone. I watched non stop and said OH SHIT many times. These are the things we are looking for in modern movies, sorry drama/romance/comedy but you haven't been able to compete with my glowing slab in a long time. When I first saw the poster for Extraction I thought here comes the next pile of Netflix trash and cancelled my subscription. I credit @ViceApologist with his enthusiasm and candor that made me NEED to see this movie and he was right, I was reminded of The Raid movies. Extraction 2 was going to have a hard time to live up but The Raid 2 delivered so maybe they could too.
I want to start by saying these are RECESS MOVIES and that means I'm not critical of any of the logic or reasoning behind the driving forces of these movies. No he couldn't have lived at the end of the last movie and no he never would have gone back into combat after almost dying but he never would have lived through the first 5 minutes of anything so fuck you shut up. EXTRACTION 2 WAS HALF GOOD. I really ENJOYED THE EXTRACTION PART. He takes the job and a great part about these movies is that they don't fuck around, they know we want the action so they show him chopping some logs and then BOOM the grim reaper is back at it. This is the motivation of a stunt man-coordinator-director, JUST KILL KILL KILLL, and we love him for it. The idea of actually extracting someone from a prison is definitely what we wanted and the fact it was a little girl had me all in, kill anything to get this lil chick to safety.
The camera work as always was a driving force to keep me from reaching for my phone. The long seemingly uncut shots make the action seem like anything could happen and therefore you aren't looking away for a second. Having us inside the vehicle with them seems brand new and this time instead of the glass blowing out from gunshots we get the opposite effect with bulletproof glass which produces the eerie and thrilling sound of death being inches away. Then to add in a TRAIN VS HELICOPTER SCENE where we give the unkillable man unlimited weapons, bullets, and targets all while never stopping again guaranteed I couldn't grab my phone. I FELT LIKE I WAS IN C.O.D and I was finally going to get a W. I think Chris Hemsworth has a good chance of being in Expendables 10.
The difference between this one and the last one however is ALL THE GUNS. It felt like the first extraction had the perfect balance of insane fight scenes and gunfire which is what reminded me of The Raid movies. Extraction 2 has far less insane fight scenes and way more gunfire. The FIRST 52 MINS are full of wild fighting through the prison and combined with guns nicely, I think they couldn't let him mow down those prisoners with the automatic cause CNN does that better but again I ain't no logic critic. The knife fights between the prison and the train scenes RIVALED JOHN WICK and they provided a few OH SHIT MOMENTS. Through the entire FIRST 52 MINS I only reached for my phone once and that was only cause I was giddy and fantasizing about Chris Hemsworth retweeting me(embarrassing I know). Thus concluded the EXTRACTION PART OF THE MOVIE. They got the family out. I sort of enjoyed the building fight but there was a lot of go-here-go-back and the crazy gym fight was not enough to make up for the rest. THE ONLY CRITICISM OF LOGIC that I will allow myself is the gun shot in the hand. He's hanging from one hand, holding, sorry Golshifteh Farahani, at least 100 pounds of person with the other hand and then takes a bullet in the grip hand???? I'm sorry he would've let go and I can't let that go.
The biggest problem I think with this movie is that...
I don't feel anything for the EXTRACTEES. The mother was kind of cute but that's no reason to root for her to make it out and the son is clearly a spoiled scum bag. The only one I absolutely needed to get to safety was the little girl and Hemsworth barely interacts with her. The reason why we fell for the first Extraction was that the lil Indian kid was so harmless and innocent and we felt like we could relate. SAVE ME CHRIS I NEED YOU! At first it looked like Tyler Rake was just taking a job but we quickly see that he ain't in this for the money he's in this for the humanity. I didn't get the same feeling in Extraction 2. At first it seem that he just wants to save some people but then we learn it's his sister in-law and we realize he's doing this for himself because he wants back in the good graces of his ex wife. Yes on the surface he is just trying to save them for saving's sake but nowhere near the selflessness of the first movie. One thing I would like to point out is that NETFLIX KNOWS this is why you liked the first movie and they had the cover poster of Chris Hemsworth and Nina(the little girl) looking directly at the camera, they knew that the little girls eyes and your dreams of him saving her would get you to watch, it worked on me. However this isn't the way the movie goes and now that poster is nowhere to be found. The cover photo of this blog is as close as it gets.
I will now tell you what I think should have happened and you can hate it if you want but its my blog and I'll write if I want to:
Tyler Rake gets Ketevan and the 2 kids Sandro and Nina to the improvised exit of the prison. At that moment Davit Radiani grabs Ketevan and breaks her neck. Rake fights Radiani and hurts him bad but Radiani gets away. Rake climbs out and proceeds with the extraction but while finding his escape an explosion at the wall allows prisoners to escape including Radiani. The train scene stays the same except when it crashes Sandro is killed and Nina (the little girl) is injured so she can't walk (This was done so well in Guy Ritchie's The Revenant go watch that for a good movie). Now Tyler Rake is separated for Nik and Yaz as they get to the extraction point and he once again has to make his way through an infested country trying to keep himself and this little girl alive with the most gritty fighting you've seen since The Raid 2. In the end he gets her to the new extraction point at the border but he's captured by the military of the bordering country and there we are set up for the SELF-EXTRACTION of the next movie (which I really hope is going to happen anyway).
In this version THE RADIANI'S ARE NEVER KILLED or even get close to Tyler Rake just like the first movie. The reason for this is because it made the first movie so much more human and based in reality. The underlying truth of Extraction 1 is that you can never beat the man, you can only do your best to survive and help each other survive. The fact is that power will always lord over you and will always try to kill you unless you become the power.
They could have done this way better but it feels like they had to pump out a sequel pretty quick and instead of rethinking the post-prison part of the extraction they kind of phoned it in and gave us more of the same. YES HE KILLED THE BAD GUY! but did it have to go that way? If they keep Sam Hargrave as Director for Extraction 3 then it will probably still be worth your time because a stunt-man-coordinator-director will always deliver the action. They haven't ruined the franchise yet but they definitely did not live up to the first one.