One of the things about the heavy churn of content film in the movie industry is how sequels can sometimes pay the price. There’s a constant influx of movies to see, and follow-up movies in whichever ‘franchise’ are starting to rise in growth. As such, when a sequel drops, it’s nigh-on impossible to recall a clear picture of what came first; woe betide your Part 2 if it focuses heavily on continuity.
What’s this about? Extraction 2, the Sam Hargrave-directed sequel to the Sam Hargrave directorial debut from 2020, which starred Chris Hemsworth. Obviously, many franchises still get away with over-production of movies and people knowing what they’re getting into with the sequel, but for Extraction, it was always unlikely to be the case, because; a) it wasn’t the most memorable first film anyway; b) it’s been three years; and c) that three years ago was the peak of the lockdown period:
The Good
To its credit, Extraction 2 does well to stand out on its own. Perhaps recognising its potential constraints, the sequel works as a standalone project. We barely get introduced to the characters that survived the first movie, but we didn’t need to be, and we barely got introduced to them in the first movie anyway. The only real connecting factor between both films is the fact that Tyler Rake kind-of-sort-of-died-but-really-didn’t, which was ultimately the thing of note to take anyway.
But the best quality of this movie is the grit and serious-faced action of it. One thing about action movies is the need to seem to have flair and panache, but Extraction 2 doesn’t bother about that. Fight sequences are more like proper battles to survive than choreographed moves. When you John Wick a guy with a car, he doesn’t fly off, he just simply, ordinarily, and gruesomely meets his death. Nothing is done beyond what is required, and nothing is done below it. The job is the goal and it needs to be done by every means, and yet with minimum fuss. It’s more intense than fun, and more raw than stylish, and brings a true sense of authenticity to itself.
The Bad
Extraction does well to stand out as its own film, and this is not a movie going for anything more than two hours of action, gunshots, and survival. But that doesn’t mean its failure as a story can be overlooked, or that it’s not a failure as a story. Tyler’s only ghost haunting him is the seeming abandonment of his deceased son, same as from the first movie. But we still get nothing in that regard, no real explanation or even exposition, we’re just meant to empathise with our good bad-guy when he remotely emotes (read: barely reminisces) about it.
That attempt and failure to generate any emotional identification with the crowd is a flaw of Extraction beyond just the lead character in itself. It’s also the case for our antagonist, Zurab, who sets out to avenge his brother’s death, and we get a repeat of one flashback scene that’s meant to get us to understand his goal, or rather distract us from watching a villain famed for everyone in his country in his pocket burn his men for the satisfaction of vengeance.
Extraction 2 also suffers from explanation for the sake of it. Whatever backstory we get barely scratch the surface of story. It very much looked like the action scenes were thought of first, then we needed the bare minimum to justify them, biggest case in point is the third act, where the movie somehow becomes a ‘this-is-between-you-and-me’ tale between two characters who barely knew each other the night before.
The Ugly
‘His last memory of you was you going off (to Afghanistan) to save lives’. I mean, we know all Hollywood action movies are western imperial whitewashing, but please stop blatantly telling us anyway.
Conclusion:
Extraction 2 is 2 hours long, and has 2 hours’ worth of fighting, death, and gunships. In a world where movies, particularly action movies, particularly Netflix action movies, can be drab star-led duds, this one still makes for good watch. Just don’t expect anything more.
Rating: 6.5/10
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