Extraction 2 Review: Bloody, Bombastic, and Better Than Its Predecessor

As a movie fan, it's always so exciting when a film series or franchise really figures it out. When a decent or even disappointing movie performs well enough to warrant a sequel, and that sequel actually learns from its predecessor's shortcomings. Annabelle: Creation and Fast Five are a couple of great examples of this, as they're sequels that actually evolved and upped the ante in exciting ways, proving a concept could have life when the previous film felt totally lifeless. That's exactly what has happened to the Extraction series with Extraction 2. Sam Hargrave's action sequel is a bloody, thrilling affair that will satisfy all kinds of action movie fans, improving on the previous entry in every conceivable way.

Extraction 2 follows Chris Hemsworth's Tyler Rake on another mission, this one following his near-death experience at the end of the first film. Retired and living in isolation, Tyler is approached with an offer for another job. He was specifically requested by his ex-wife to rescue her sister and her two children from a Georgian prison, where they were being held captive by her sister's gangster husband. Of course, because it's his ex-wife asking, Tyler takes the job, and it puts him and his team — Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) and Yaz (Adam Bessa) — in the crosshairs of a lethal Georgian militia. Led by the brother of the imprisoned husband, they refuse to stop until they feel justice is served and Tyler is put in the ground.

This second go-round for Extraction is far superior to the 2020 film, addressing most of the major issues and doubling down on what really worked. Sam Hargrave is an action director's action director. This is a man who absolutely knows how to be inventive during big fight scenes and how to make you feel part of a chase. He showed flashes of that in the first film, but writer/producer Joe Russo's clunky and overstuffed script frequently got in the way of the action pieces. They took a back seat to exposition and below-average character work. 

Russo returned to write the script for Extraction 2, and it's still the weakest part of the film, but I have to give credit where it's due: Extraction 2 was written specifically for Hargrave's talents as a filmmaker and it shows. The massive one-shot sequence that has been touted throughout production isn't something done just for the sake of making a sequence look cool. Its pacing and urgency are necessary to the story and where it's going. The script and direction actually work together instead of being at odds with one another, as it seemed in that first outing.

Speaking of that one-shot sequence, it's one of the most mesmerizing action pieces in quite some time. The fights throughout the film are intense and hard-hitting, but things are taken to another level throughout the oner. A 23-minute take follows the characters through a prison, into a 100-man brawl, into a car chase, and onto a moving train; it's the kind of work that can make a filmmaker's career. It's not quite as epic as the action featured in a film like The Raid, but Hargrave makes plenty of decisions that remind me of watching Gareth Evans-directed fight scenes for the first time. He's got the goods.

Extraction 2 also does some impeccable work with Hemsworth's lead character. He was supremely unlikeable in the first movie but this one puts more on the shoulders of Hemsworth and less on the script. That proves to be a very wise decision. Instead of being a scorned mercenary who doesn't care about living, Rake is now a man searching for a purpose after being given a second shot at life. Hemsworth gets to show off his charming chops and makes a case as the next great action movie hero. If this is the Tyler Rake we would've seen in the first Extraction, I would've been much more excited going into this sequel.

Is Extraction 2 clunky at times? Yes. Does it still take itself way too seriously? Absolutely — the franchise could really use an actual screenwriter. But at the end of the day, this is the gnarly pulse-pounder that Netflix advertised back in 2020. This is the bombastic action extravaganza we've been waiting for.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Extraction 2 debuts on Netflix on June 16th.