There was something about Sam Hargrave’s Extraction (2020) that just clicked. It didn’t reinvent the action genre, nor did it try to juggle more than it was capable. It felt like a pure roots actioner that allowed its set pieces to ride you through all the mediocrity within its writing. Maybe being released during lockdown when there was little choice in the way of new releases would have helped its cause, but I feel a cinema run wouldn’t have otherwise hurt its reputation.
No surprises then that a sequel was planned, especially given where the story left off. Our hero Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) narrowly escapes the jaws of death and has to cancel his early retirement plan when he’s given a new mission. Initially impassive to the job offer, Rake reconsiders when there’s personal stake involved with the mission.
This sequel reunites Hemsworth with his Marvel pals, writer/director Joe Russo (of Avengers fame) and stuntman turned director Sam Hargraves who had all worked together for the first instalment. Similarly to its predecessor this action romp is plenty dumb but full of fun. There’s little nuances to its narrative which as a result forces most of the action to take control. Extraction 2 is a perfect pastiche of the classic 80’s actioner which this seems heavily influenced by. Replace Hemsworth with Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone and slot it right in the middle of said decade and this wouldn’t feel at all out of place.
Alongside Hemsworth reprising their roles are Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Bessa as his reliable allies. With the inclusion of a mysterious and underutilised Idris Elba and Olga Kurylenko starring as his ex-wife. Beyond that we have your genre generic baddies ‘Eastern European mob brothers 1 and 2’ and an early contender for most annoying character 0f 2023 in Andro Japaridze’s Sandro.
The cold backdrop of ‘Georgia’ doesn’t quite have the same impact as the harsh and hot location of Dhaka, Bangladesh which was better utilised between sequences. But the action does do an awful lot to distract you from these more minor issues. One sequence in particular is a staggering twenty minute long ‘one shot’ take, that begins with a prison breakout and somehow finds itself on a train with Rake shooting down a helicopter with a mountable machine gun like he’s stumbled into a Call of Duty online server.
When you’re not in awe of these sequences though, Extraction 2 suffers from its numbing narrative and severe lack of care in character or script design. No amount of deaths by dumbbell can really elevate it beyond a simple evening entertainer.
Critical Clay 