Extraction 2

3 outta 5

Extraction 2 certainly delivers some large-scale chaos, which comes in lots of different and incredibly messy forms. There’s prisoner riots, rampaging trains, and buckets of nails to the face. No normal human could survive the amount of punishment that is inflicted here on the main character, but no normal human would be named Tyler Rake either. The movie leaves realism behind from the start, as it begins with the ending of the first film where the main character gets shot to hell but then the same main character spends a few minutes of screentime going from coma to incredible badass. When the film slows down for some character moments, it’s kind of a cliched drag. But the attempted emotional depth wears off and then happily another insane action set-piece will happen.

Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) was shot on his last mission and ended up in a coma. But he’s too badass to die so he wakes up, goes through some physiotherapy, and then is sent off to recuperate at a secluded cabin by his compatriots Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) and Yaz (Adam Bessa). His recovery is disrupted by a mysterious fella (Idris Elba) who offers Rake a new mission to save a family from their crazy criminal father, Davit (Tornike Bziava). He wants to be close to his family while he’s incarcerated so his wife, Ketevan (Tinatin Dalakishvili), and their children, Sandro (Andro Japaridze) and little Nina are sent to prison with him. Overseeing this strange incarceration family drama is the criminal syndicate leader, and Davit’s brother, Zurab (Tornike Gogrichiani). So, Tyler, Nik and Yaz attempt to break the family out and soon things go sideways with the crew on the run from Zurab’s paramilitary goon squad out for revenge.

There was a bit of continuity/sequel teasing at the end of the last film, was Tyler Rake still alive when he appeared to a character outside of a pool in the last few seconds? The answer here turns out to be yes, but there’s no mention of Tyler’s poolside excursion. There’s no room for it in the plot either as Tyler goes from rehab to prison break out with no time for the movie to stop and have him visit a pool to tie off a continuity knot. Of course, continuity and consistent internal logic isn’t the main selling point of this, the action is.

Where it slows down to get into Tyler’s emotional backstory, or anything involving the history of the criminal brothers, things come screeching to a halt. Probably one of the few non-action scenes in this film that works well is when Idris Elba’s character shows up, looks cool, drops some exposition to send Tyler on this way, then disappears until a sequel-bait teaser at the end. Also, some scenes when Tyler is hanging around his cabin for rehab, and complaining to his dog about who won Dancing with the Stars are funny. When Elba’s mysterious fellow tells him that the operation will start in six weeks there’s a blistering montage of Hemsworth working out and going from leg brace limping to power-lifting. The script, by Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo, is kind of mopey. Rake’s family history is predictably tragic, and in a remarkable coincidence Ketevan is the sister of Rake’s ex-wife. Later the ex-wife played by Olga Kurylenko shows up and looks at Rake sadly.

This ennui extends to the bad guys as well. Davit and Zurab are clearly evil but there’s a few flashbacks to their abusive childhoods. It really doesn’t make the bad guys understandable or sympathetic since these guys are killer monsters. Gogrichiani as Zurab contributes some menacing glowering, while Bziava as Davit is such a tool it’s enjoyable to watch him get pasted. The family are basically plot pieces, and the teenage kid makes some remarkably stupid decisions to keep the story going. Hemsworth as Tyler may be a gaggle of cliches from a character perspective but he’s downright intimidating in the action scenes, also it’s fun to see Hemsworth use his natural Australian accent for a character for once. Farahani and Bessa as Rake’s buddies get in a few good quips at the start, and each get at least one stand out moment in the action scenes.

In the action scenes is where Extraction 2 lets loose. There are a lot of single-take shots where the action keeps going and going, bringing the audience along with big action moments at the end of the scene. A prison breakout turns into a riot, turns into a car chase, turns into a fight on a train with Rake mowing down helicopters with a giant automatic gun. There’s a brawl atop a high rise building that has Rake finding interesting usage of gym equipment to take out bad guys, ending with him almost falling off the edge of a roof into oblivion. Then when he’s hanging on for dear life the bad guy shoots him in the hand. The finale battle keeps it with an ‘80s action movie throwback of one-on-one good guy vs. bad guy with lots of crunchy bits.

Things are enjoyably messy when Extraction 2 concentrates on kicking ass. The character bits don’t really connect with the script striving to give the film emotional pathos. But when it’s just bullets flying and punching mayhem, it’s rocking.