‘Extraction 2’ review: Chris Hemsworth action sequel is all brawn and no brains

Sounding like the sequel to a dentist appointment, Extraction 2 arrives three years after the original Netflix action thriller starring Chris Hemsworth as unkillable mercenary Tyler Rake. In that time, the streamer has enjoyed a lockdown subscriber bump, panicked when that bump inverted post-COVID, and responded with a worldwide crackdown on password-sharers. They’ve also slashed the amount of original movies they make – which explains the long wait for more of Rake’s skull-cracking antics.

To be honest, the extra time off was necessary. When we left the tough-but-secretly-sad soldier, he’d just been shot through the neck and fallen off a bridge in Dhaka, Bangladesh. You’d need more than a week-long holiday to get over that.

But get over it he does. At the start of Extraction 2, Rake is dragged from the Buriganga River by a team of paramedics, patched up and dumped in a hospital bed to recuperate. His injuries mean he won’t work again, doctor’s orders, but at least he’ll live (we know this because the gruff Aussie’s first words out of surgery are “fuck off”). Eventually, the hobbled hitman recovers enough to be sent back home – a secluded log cabin in the Austrian mountains – where he chops wood, ice-fishes and watches football with his chickens. Meanwhile, in a Georgian prison, local gangster Seb is shown beating his wife Ketevan who turns out to be… Rake’s ex-sister-in-law! Ding-ding-ding! It’s the perfect excuse to pack in retirement (which he hated anyway) and kick-off the film’s high-octane mission: rescue Ketevan along with her two kids, and kill as many people as possible while doing it.

The second film in the franchise is, ostensibly, more of the same. Former stuntman Sam Hargrave returns to direct a script written by one half of Marvel’s brotherly duo, Joe Russo, and there’s a continued obsession with the one-shot chase scene (this time for a full 21 minutes out of a prison and onto a moving freight train). It’s also just as violent as before, if not more so. John Wick pioneered the goons-as-papier-mâché-props approach to action movies, but even Baba Yaga can’t out-murder Rake here. Seriously, we tried to count the bodies and ran out of fingers roughly three seconds into the opening fight. Crunching, ripping and snapping their way through hordes of Eastern European enemies, Rake and his small, SWAT-style team of unerring marksmen serve up dynamite battle sequences stuffed with thrillingly chaotic moments. Our favourite is when Rake socks several unlucky henchmen with a gloved fist that has somehow caught fire.

There’s a bit of perfunctory plot to get past – Rake has repressed guilt involving his ill son and ex-wife that needs resolving – but character development is not this film’s strong point. In fact, it’s often baffling. Rake is initially depressed, lamenting his future life as a cripple. Yet literally 15 minutes later he’s squashing bad guys like they’re NPCs in a video game. Elsewhere, characters make strange choices that put them in mortal danger for no reason and Idris Elba momentarily turns up as a cockney fixer who downs a beer and then vanishes. He reappears again at the end, to set up another sequel, though you’ll have decided whether to stick with this series long before then. It’s mostly pleasing, mindless fun, but making sense of the story is like pulling teeth.

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