I watched the first Extraction when it came out on Netflix in 2020. I actually enjoyed it more than I expected. With solo action films like John Wick and Jason Bourne on the rise, it feels like the Extraction series is following in their footsteps. However, Extraction 2 and Chris Hemsworth have a lot of catching up to do to be at the ranks of Matt Damon and Keanu Reeves.
Extraction 2 is a continuation story of Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) and his journey recovering from the events of the prequel. We see Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Bessa reprise their roles as Nik Khan and Yaz Khan respectively. In this adventure, Tyler receives a job from his ex-wife that her sister is in need of rescuing from the Radiani brothers, our main antagonists in the film. Rake must reform his team, infiltrate a foreign country and extract his ex-sister in law and her two children before they are compromised.
One aspect of this film that should get high praise is its action. The action sequences are perfectly shot and feel like I am actually there. There is a lot of talk about the 21 minute one-shot and I have seen mixed reviews about it, but I can tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was only expecting the scene to be shot in one place or area but no, they went above and beyond with it going on trains and throughout the entire prison. I had my eyes glued for 21 minutes. Besides the one-shot, the other action scenes felt genuine.
Where the film seriously lacked was in the dialogue and writing. The film spent way too long with unnecessary dialogue between certain characters. Extraction 2 was about two hours long and there was a good 30 minutes of unneeded content. It would have been great to see more of Rake building his strength up more Rocky style.
Along with the dialogue, some of the writing was questionable too. I don’t think the son (Sandro) was written well. I understand that he was written to be the way he was supposed to, but I felt no sympathy for him and just thought he was a whiny teen.
Final Thoughts
Extraction 2 was a solid continuation of Tyler Rake’s story. Although it had intense action sequences and the choreography was spot on, it lacked storytelling. I really hope for the next film they spend a lot of time on character development and writing. I feel like this series could rise to the ranks of John Wick and Jason Bourne. I do recommend this movie to the average solo action film fan.
