‘Extraction 2′ Movie Review: Chris Hemsworth Returns As The Gun-For-Hire Who Pulls You Completely In
16.06.2023 - 05:00
/ etcanada.com
Tyler Rake was clinically dead when we last saw him at the end of “Extraction,” tumbling over a bridge in Bangladesh with a fatal, burbling bullet wound to his neck. But death is no match for Netflix.
Chris Hemsworth returns as the sad-sack, gun-for-hire Rake in “Extraction 2” and you’ll thank the giant streamer for such a nifty bit of resurrection because this franchise is pure cinematic adrenalin.
READ MORE: ‘Extraction 2’ Trailer: Chris Hemsworth Fights To Find Out Why He Survived The Deadly Events Of His Last Mission
The new movie comes two years after a surprisingly good first instalment, which saw Rake intervene in a feud between two rival drug dealers, survive numerous double-crosses, ask things like “How many hostiles onsite?” and lob an inexhaustible number of grenades.
How he survived it all stuns even his friends. Emerging from a coma in “Extraction 2,” he is stashed in a remote chalet in Gmunden, Austria, and told to chill out — learn to knit, go on hikes, try to reach mindfulness. “Enjoy retirement,” he is told. If he did there would be no “Extraction 2.”
Inevitably, a new extraction job comes along, so cue the getting-in-shape montage of Hemsworth doing pushups in the snow, splitting firewood, pushing a sled filled with rocks and some light ax throwing. Somehow, the “Extraction” movies lean into all the cliches but they don’t feel old.
Hemsworth is re-joined here by Marvel Comic Universe–screenwriter Joe Russo and stunt-specialist-turned-director Sam Hargrave, but their ace-in-the-hole is cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel. He creates impossibly long single takes of complicated fighting or driving scenes that put the viewer directly into the action like few other thrillers.
This time, Sigel stages a