Months ago, mercenary Tyler Rake was pulled from the Ganges. Stabbed, shot and blown up, he’s closer to death than life. However, his old associates get him to the best medicine that off-the-books money can buy and Rake slowly begins to pull through.
Tyler lies in recovery and in off-the-grid isolation, pondering his life choices – not least going off to fight in Afghanistan years ago while he and his (now ex-)wife’s son died in hospital before he could get home again. That caused his marriage to Mia to fall apart, but now comes news that Mia’s sister Ketevan and her son are being held in a Georgian prison by her drug dealer husband Davit, more out of collateral pragmatism than love.
Rake agrees to find new meaning to his life and possible personal redemption by helping her escape, but though they make it out and Davit is killed, Davit’s brother Zuran decides family is everything… and with Ketevan’s son Sandro tilting towards his father’s lifestyle and not fully appreciating the ‘rescue’, staying one step ahead of the East European mercenaries isn’t going to be easy…
*spoilers*
Based on Ande Parks’ graphic-novel Ciudad, the first Extraction was a solid enough action-outing – a riff on the now obligatory and everywhere ‘grizzled fighter protects innocent child’ tale – and one that unexpectedly became one of Netflix‘s biggest hits to date in 2020 (perhaps in part to the COVID factor of people turning to their homebound streaming platforms for their feature fix). Even given the fact that – spoiler – its hero Tyler Rake was pretty much a walking, falling, drowning corpse by the end, such minor details have rarely stopped the greenlight being offered on sequels. After some ‘Only mostly dead’ caveats and the cinematic equivalent of ‘with a bound he was free’ semantics, the second film (helpfully called Extraction II) goes wider, further and longer but far less deep. All said and done, this is an 80s action-flick rollercoaster with a serious contemporary kick, with every factor except the script souped up for modern expectations. Pedigree-wise, you know to expect gloss and momentum throughout. Directed with flair by Sam Hargrave whose arguably superior Atomic Blonde gives an idea of his strengths, the film is produced by the Russo Brothers (Anthony and Joe of Avengers: Endgame fame) with the brothers coming up with their version of the story and Joe writing the script.
Much has been made of the early, lengthy one-shot that seems to last a full twenty-minutes at the start of the main mission. Of course, it’s nothing of the sort – it’s the kind of technically-ambitious but impossible tracking sequence – brutal, fast-paced, inventive and in-your-face throughout – in which you have to suspend disbelief or at least pretend you aren’t looking for all the necessary joins. Listen, it’s still marvelous, inventive stuff, a bullet-ballet and concussive cavalcade of testosterone and full credit to those involved – both in front of and behind the camera and the editing suites thereafter -the choreography is truly very impressive, flows well and those joins aren’t immediately obvious until you engage your brain. Really, what else do you need in an action movie? Well, if you’re really bothered, any kind of script would be great…
…it’s the kind of technically-ambitious but impossible tracking sequence – brutal, fast-paced, inventive and in-your-face throughout – in which you have to suspend disbelief or at least pretend you aren’t looking for all the necessary joins. Listen, it’s still marvelous, inventive stuff, a bullet-ballet and concussive cavalcade of testosterone and full credit to those involved – both in front of and behind the camera and the editing suites thereafter -the choreography is truly very impressive, flows well and those joins aren’t immediately obvious until you engage your brain. Really, what else do you need in an action movie? Well, if you’re really bothered, any kind of script would be great…
One rarely expects Shakespeare from action outings. However, to the same degree that the action choreography in Extraction II is top-notch, the script is equally truly dreadful. When letting the kinetic set-pieces lead the way – which this sequel wisely does for the most part – you can feel each bone-break, bruise blossom and nerve flinch as one handy object after another is used in inventive and painful ways to further the cause. In that sense, this is a feature that continues the trend of up-close-and-personal retribution and could teach James Bond a thing or two. But unlike, say, The Raid (to this date Gareth Evans boundary-pushing, defining love letter to the medium and which fully committed to that tone) or John Wick (that winks slyly at you as it raises the stakes and uses them to impale), Extraction II falls back on that ’80s actioner logic and bland tropes as it seeks to add an existential crisis into the mix: with our hero contemplating his mistakes, regrets and general place in the universe before finding it in his ammo-pack. The script, stripped of sound-effects and stage directions, gives cursory dialogue to divide the punch-ups, kick-offs and general mayhem but rapidly becomes inconsequential or just plain nonsensical. (At one point Tyler Rake’s partner Nik tells recent hostage Ketevan that she ‘can’t imagine what you’ve been through‘ and then in the very next line says she went through similar trails and tribulations so can, like, totally sympathise).
After his run as Thor and experiences on the first Extraction, Hemsworth is a force to be reckoned with, capable of doing all this and more in his sleep. While it takes a while for Tyler to recover from his life-threatening injuries and his crisis of faith after the events of the first film, once he has a new mission and target, he quickly subjects his entire body to a tough testosterone-fuelled montage that lasts all of several minutes and then he’s back ready and fit for glorious purpose. Like bionic Steve Austin of old, he’s going to be bigger, better, stronger and faster than he was before and Hemsworth has clearly fully committed to the production to achieve just that. Though he may be taking a break from acting due to recent legacy-health factors, there’s little doubt that the Australian born actor is well-equipped to position himself as a genuine leading man, capable of handling the requisite rough-and-tumble of the action genre with grim intensity but also, when asked, to handle humour and drama in self-deprecating style. Here, though, that humour is reduced to a few quips amongst the kicks and the few quiet moments only require him to squint towards a green-screen horizon that will be added later. Judging it on that level alone, Hemsworth’s Tyler is likely to be the main contender for summer blockbusting until Mission Impossible arrives to light its own fuse under the box-office.
In the supporting cast you have the return of impressive Iranian actor Golshifteh Farahani as Rake’s handler/right-hand woman
Basically, a mix of Call of Duty gaming, The Expendables and a platform of once-straight-to-DVD antics served up with an obvious A-List budget, Extraction II is passably silly, kevlar-laced entertainment and on that sheer, unapologetic popcorn scale where people do stupid things with explosive results (and diminishing returns) it will clearly satisfy and entertain in the moment – if not actually challenge or push any boundaries. But whether there will (or should be) an Extraction III is still an entirely separate issue…
- Story6
- Acting6
- Direction9
- Production Design / VFX10
