Extraction 2 Review | Upping the Ante

A step up in overall quality from its decent, run-of-the-mill predecessor, director and action maestro Sam Hargrave’s Extraction 2 should solidly whet the appetites of action movie buffs. Playing like even more of a pumped up take on Schwarzenegger’s Commando than the first film, Extraction 2 takes the familiar concept of a gruff one man killing machine with a heart of gold and pushes the action and dramatics to their absolute limits. The story isn’t straining itself too hard, but the set pieces and physicality necessary to pull them off are some of the most impressive feats of brawn and logistical smarts on film this year.

Chris Hemsworth returns as highly sought after mercenary-for-hire Tyler Rake, who was left about as close to dead as a human being can get at the close of the first film. His closest ally and handler, Nik (Golshifteh Farahani), worries for Tyler and essentially forces him into retirement at a secluded cabin in the middle of the Austrian wilderness. It’s probably for the best because Tyler only has one uninjured arm and requires a cane to get around. But naturally – because there wouldn’t be much of a movie otherwise – Tyler is coaxed back into the fold to complete another impossible mission just nine months after nearly dying, and this time, it has a personal connection. Rake has to break into a highly secure Georgian prison to extract a family – a woman (Tinatin Dalakisvii), her brooding teenage son (Andro Japaidze), and young daughter (Mariami and Marta Kovziashvili) – who’ve been forced to live behind bars with their husband/father (Tornike Bziava), a well connected gangster, gun runner, and drug dealer locked up for killing a DEA agent, who has amassed army-like power with the help of his brother and ruthless/feared business partner (Tornike Gogrichiani).

Just like Rake’s first go around, things are easier said than done, and once things get real and dangerous, Hargrave kicks the action into overdrive and never looks back. Extraction 2 isn’t the type of movie someone watches for the story, but at least this time out, screenwriter Joe Russo (once again adapting the graphic novel Ciudad that he co-created with his brother Joe and Ande Parks) provides a bit more emotional weight this time out. Extraction 2 makes things personal for its protagonists, and the viewer learns some more interesting details about Tyler’s past and his relationship to Nik and her equally capable, but more fun loving mercenary brother, Yaz (Adam Bessa). Hemsworth is still physically up to the task, but his performance as Rake is better this time out because he’s given more to work with. But Farahani remains a major standout in these films, and Extraction 2 gives her a whole heck of a lot more to do.

Extraction 2 seems to have taken any criticisms of the first film to heart and implemented some good changes. While the violence in Extraction 2 is just as painfully brutal to behold as the first film was, gone is the original’s streak of low key cruelty that occasionally soured the fun. Hargrave understands which action sequences resonated the most in the original, and while he’s clever enough to make sure he’s not replicating them outright, he’s using those techniques in fresh, interesting ways. Hargrave and the Russos are also trying to build a bigger franchise world with Extraction 2 – one that’s more akin to the likes of the Fast and the Furious series given the ridiculousness and sheer number of times people say the word “family” here – but it’s well integrated without feeling overstuffed. The focus in Extraction 2 is always exactly where it needs to be.

And that focus is on epic, large scale action that isn’t seen these days outside of the previously mentioned Fast series and the works of everyone’s favourite vulgar auteur Michael Bay. While there’s still plenty of expertly choreographed close combat fights (including some of the most painful use of home repair items that I can recall and a really awesome bit involving a glass ledge), Extraction 2 is all about the spectacle. There’s plenty of car chases, crashes, explosions, runaway trains, and shootouts with heavily armed helicopters that really set this thing apart. Sometimes, trying to have it both ways with action movies doesn’t pan out, but Extraction 2 has a nice balance of fisticuffs and total geographical annihilation to make it work. The fights are top notch, and a lot of the larger set pieces are so expertly shot and edited (dig all those sequences cleverly designed to look like single, unending takes) that Extraction 2 is marvellous to behold on a purely technical level.

In the end, Extraction 2 is nothing more than the sum of its gorgeously assembled parts, but that’s just fine. The film could do without the subplot of a whining teenage boy torn between a mother than loves him and the desire to become a hardened criminal like his old man and uncle, but other than that, things play out well enough to balance out the action and fill in the few quiet spaces this thing has. Sometimes you just need a solid action movie, and Extraction 2 is certainly that. Here’s hoping that the Russos take what they have learned from these films and apply them to their other swing-and-a-miss franchise starter The Gray Man. I kinda have a feeling they will.

Extraction 2 is streaming on Netflix starting Friday, June 16, 2023.