Extraction 2 (2023)
Prepare for the ride of your life.
After the first Extraction blew up as a hit, it was inevitable really that another would be around the corner. Of course, as I say this I guess with Netflix nothing is ever “inevitable” - sometimes something does excellent and gets cancelled, sometimes it does horrible and doesn’t. Either way, most the folks who watched the first weren’t exactly disappointed to hear of a sequel - even if most would be left wondering how after the last ended, so settle in to find out as spoiler free a who-what-when-how is getting freed dramatically in Extraction 2.
We start where the last left off - with our hero in dire straits. Turns out we didn’t want much of a sequel without him, so we end up pulling him out of the river and doing some emergency super-medical action to keep him alive. Hurting, but alive. Our main lady lead from the previous is back as well, setting him up with a nice little retirement home for recovery. Things don’t last nice and peaceful for long though - a job he can’t refuse ends up finding it’s way to him, and it’s not long before him and the extraction team are going to find themselves battling a lot more than they really expected. Some little twists, a whole bunch of turns, and we have ourselves a movie.
Actors do a good job here. You get a good range from most of them, and although it can seem a bit over-dramatic at times perhaps, I feel that it all matches the energy of the scene. You can’t have someone acting reserved if the scene itself is blowing things out of the water, or it just doesn’t feel right. That said, people know how to be reserved when it’s called for. This also plays out into the stunt workers - of which a lot of stunts are happening here, so the fact that everyone is playing to the scenes really helps with the overall investment. Line’s are well delivered as well, so you get plenty of emotional stuff to help balance out the action’s bravado.
The characters manage decent as well. We get to learn a lot more about the main cast returning from the last one, including seeing some folks we didn’t really interact with at all. That said, there’s a few that are either incredibly one-note, and a few that you’ll hate for their rather idiot actions, but some of it all plays off of emotions so it’s not unrealistic in that sense - and if a character is annoying you, then technically the characters and the actors playing them are doing a good job.
Like a still from a video game.
I’m sure the big portion of the audience is here for either the main actor or what ended up being an impressive moment in the first movie: the oners. Now, mind you, some have no idea what i just said there so I’ll elaborate a bit - a oner is a scene in a movie in which it’s all stitched together to make the appearance of one cut, as if it’s all one big take. Now, there’s plenty of sneaky ways to do this without it actually all being first try single stretch - usually through very sneaky hidden cuts, but the implication is it’s one big long take, and here it’s used to the benefit of the movie. It’s not just there for the sake of it, it’s there to drive home the exhaustive nature and chaos of the main extraction (there’s actually more than one, but the big one is the one I’m talking about here). Now, this thing is huge, encompassing pretty much the entirety of the extraction including the moments where things go wrong, and it works amazing to fill it’s role of being exhaustive. I of course don’t mean that in a bad way, but it’ll really get your stress levels going at times with all the stuff going on, and if you enjoy that sort of thing then it really is a great little act. Doing things like this does come with some complications, and perhaps the scenes could be “nicer” with the added cuts and camera angles, but it’s a solid textbook example of using a method to fit a role and doing it expertly - and we do get some action scenes with the cuts too, showing that we have a good idea of the fact that nothing everything should be a one-take string.
The action scenes are bumping too. We’ve got gun fights, fist fights, explosions - if you have it on an action movie bingo board it’s probably in here. Big scenes, close in scenes, tactical and chaotic. The non-stop nature of some of it, like the primary oner, might even actually wear some folks down and get them tired out! It’s surprisingly not as violent as the ridiculous body count would imply - yes, people are getting shot or stabbed, but for the most part it’s not explicit about it past a few key scenes. It’s something that we are getting out of some of the new-age action flicks I can appreciate, where they don’t over-rely on the shock value of gore, although they’ll still get some heavy hits in that’ll make you wince for sure. If you like action flicks, there is a lot of stuff to enjoy.
The audio department doesn’t want to be left behind here either. Gunshots, explosions, cars, and audio are all balanced well. The music will kick in and swell up and really get you pumped up for whats going on, or it’ll hit up those emotional chords when it wants you to feel a bit more human about something. Although it can seem a bit relentless with parts of the action, the score knows when to quiet up and let you focus on some of the more natural sound of the scene. There’s some nitpicking that could be done about the movie, sure. We cou ld talk about this “using a ladder as cover” when honestly I think it’s more just getting of the center of a firing lane with nowhere else to go. We could point out some of the spots where CG doesn’t look as great as it could - even though it’s still perfectly acceptable and doesn’t ruin the movie in my opinion. We could also talk about all sorts of the more heavy emotional or talking-point moments of the movie, but some of that I’m ignoring for my relatively spoiler-free methodology. and the rest I’m generally leaving for anyone more suited for using their brain than me to talk about it.
All for the fun floor!
I enjoyed this movie. It really does what a sequel should do - takes what’s good about the first, and then find some way to add to it without just being “more of the same thing.” In turn, if you watched the first - which you probably should before watching this one, if for nothing but a basic briefer on the main character and his relations to the other characters - and had a good time, you’ll likewise be thrilled about this one. I would say that the first movie had me annoyed at characters actions a lot less, and in turn some if it ends up playing out pretty much exactly how you would expect because of it. Still, surprised aside, the movie does a wonderful job serving up what it pitches, and even after a second watch I’m not loosing any real enjoyment in watching it yet. Will the probably inevitable number three be able to keep the impressive momentum up and keep doing something bigger and better? Who knows, but for now we have a two-set of movies that are quite the enjoyable watch for action fans.