Extraction 2

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CAT'S PICK : ★ 8.3

The Russo Brothers, who are responsible for the design of several of the best Marvel films, including Captain America: The Avengers and the Winter Soldier. Extraction was a smashing B-movie directed by their longtime stunt coordinator, Sam Hargrave, and featured Chris Hemsworth tearing through a crowded and corrupt South Asian city to save a teenage boy from a Bangladeshi drug lord. Hargrave's film proved to be a great time for anyone looking for nothing more than thrilling action choreography and delightfully brutal fisticuffs, despite its "white savior" setup causing some to complain. Three years later, Hemsworth is back in Extraction 2, a bigger, more expensive sequel that loses a lot of its down-and-dirty charm as well as some of the more problematic aspects of the first film.

After the first film's climax, Extraction 2 picks up where Extraction 1 left off, with Joe Russo writing the film script on his own. Rake, a mercenary turned special operations soldier who lost his young son to cancer and has never recovered emotionally, appears to have died after completing his mission, being hit by gunfire, and falling off a bridge. Despite the fact that Rake has in fact survived, as was teased in the film's final scene. To Extraction 2's credit, Rake does not simply miraculously recover from his numerous serious injuries. Instead, for the first time, we see him in a deep coma that only his handler and lone friend Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) wants to let him out of.

Extraction 2 gives fans of the original film everything they could possibly want in its first fifty minutes, and the set-up is satisfactory. The prison break in Extraction 2 is shot and then digitally stitched together to appear as though the entire action takes place in a single take in an effort to surpass the continuous-action that was a highlight of the first film. Rake goes from inside the prison during a full-blown riot to a lengthy car chase to a moving train, where he fights not only armed terrorists but also two circling attack helicopters. It lasts 21 minutes.

Unfortunately, things begin to veer off course after that. The plot moves to Vienna, Austria, where Rake incorrectly believes the family will now be safe as the action picks up. Instead, Zurab and his army soon follow, and Extraction 2 bizarrely transforms into a far less entertaining riff on Die Hard or perhaps Mission: Impossible.