This may not be the sequel that the original Extraction deserved, but it’s the only one it’s got (for now). Like its predecessor, Extraction II is too damn long, and while I appreciate the symmetry of both movies clocking it at (give or take) two hours, there’s no reason any action movie should exceed a 90 minute (100-ish if you’re feeling generous) running time. Tyler Rake’s (Chris Hemsworth) recovery from his previous mission and subsequent 10-minute retirement, for instance, should have been a pre-title montage as opposed to taking up the entire first act. Sure, it would have detracted from the gravity of his injuries; then again, his injuries may have been life-threatening, but in retrospect they obviously were never anywhere near being career-ending.
Also like the original, this one is unapologetically violent — and why should it have to apologize? The violence on display here isn’t so much over-the-top as it is middle-of-the-road; the same cornerstones that made the first film entertaining (the over-the-shoulder, 360-degree, immersive camera work; the breakneck, move-it-or-lose-it high speed car chases; the flesh-splitting, bone-cracking, in-your-face, close-quarters hand-to-hand combat) are all back, but everything has been coated with a thick layer of the phoniest computer-generated visual effects this side of Top Gun: Maverick, saddling the entire experience with the innocuousness of a Looney Tunes cartoon, as well as the sense of detachment that you get from watching someone else play a video game.
On at least two occasions Tyler engages in shootouts against helicopters with mounted machine guns, which is already pretty far-fetched; on top of that, though, it’s so painfully evident that what comes out of the choppers’ guns has been added digitally in post-production, that you could turn the volume down and easily make believe that they’re shooting lasers instead of bullets. And then there’s the scene where Tyler’s arm catches fire and, without missing a beat, he puts it out by beating up on some random mook; this sounds great in theory, but in practice we’re not surprised that Tyler no-sells the searing pain of third-degree burns, because his limb clearly isn’t aflame. I’ve asked it before, and I’ll ask it again; when did fire stop being fire and become cheap-looking CGI?
I know Extraction II is just a big, dumb action flick, but I still think that the viewer should feel like something’s at stake. You know you’re in trouble when people are getting killed left and right, dropping like so many flies, and yet it doesn’t come across as a life-and-death situation. Even when the good guys and the bad guys do battle in ostensibly public places, there is little or no, you know, public; the absence of civilians means there’s no collateral damage, which in turn deprives the events of quite a bit of urgency. It’s a shame, because well-executed action set pieces help to distract the audience from the script’s plotholes.
We learn that the Radiani brothers, Zurab and Davit, “practically run [Georgia],” in spite of which Davit faces 10 years in jail for throwing “a DEA agent off a roof;” as it turns out, “If it wasn’t [sic] for the Americans, Davit would be free.” Davit forces his wife Keteva and their children to move to prison with him, and Tyler and his team are hired to extract the woman and kids. Yada yada yada we find out in the end that Keteva made a deal with “the Americans,” who put her in “witness protection” in exchange for “trade routes, bank accounts, names.” Now, if these vaunted Americans had enough clout to keep Davit in jail, why didn’t they pull some of the same strings to ensure Keteva’s departure from prison in a more official, peaceful manner? Or, better yet, to keep her from going there at all in the first place? (and speaking of things that don’t add up, the filmmakers totally retconned the ending of Extraction. Booooo!).
90% of Everything is Crap 