Extraction 2 is so bad it made me long for the days of Cannon Films

Extraction was not a great movie, but at least it was interesting.

Its sequel, Extraction 2, isn’t even that. It’s a limp, lifeless bore that feels like a gameplay video for yet another identity-free shooter.

Picking up immediately where the first one ended, Extraction 2 is an immediate reminder of just how unnecessary it is. After getting torn apart by a hail of bullets, the hilariously named Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) topples off a bridge to certain death.

Instead of dying, he finds himself in Direct to Netflix purgatory, where lost careers go to release films that both do and do not exist. Resigned to retirement as a scruffy lumberjack, Rake is brought back into action after a visit from a contractually obligated Idris Elba.

The mission is an elaborate fetch quest to rescue his sister-in-law and kids from their drug lord husband. The only problem is he’s sequestered himself and his family inside a Georgian prison, which, in turn, is a powder keg just looking for an excuse to perform an over-choreographed set piece.

It’s an irresistible proposition for Rake, still in pieces from the shooting, and his afternoon plans fell through after he obliterated Dhaka. So, in one of the laziest montages in years, he fixes himself up in an afternoon and sets off to kill nameless henchmen in an impoverished country.

And that’s where the script ends.

I mean, the movie keeps going, but the writing just stops. After that, it’s just a cacophony of grunts and groans and a series of shots of Chris Hemsworth looking off-camera for someone, anyone, to yell cut.

Sure, there’s action a-plenty. One scene in particular is a showcase of Netflix’s unlimited budget. It includes a 21-minute break-in-turn-break-out-turn-car-chase-turn-train-chase sequence that deserves a mention. Not because it’s a great or even a very good set-piece, but at least it tries.

And let’s not pretend like the sheer outrageousness of it all isn’t fun. Far from it. In a better film, this would be the grand finale. Here, it’s the opening act.

But Extraction 2 is so po-faced about the whole thing that a thought crept into my mind and nestled there like a kitten. Do the filmmakers think this is meant to be taken seriously?

And, honestly, I’m not sure anymore. The hero is a grouchy stereotype called Rake, but he’s dealing with the tragic loss of his child. A guy is killed with a literal rake, but it’s framed as a horrific and gory shocker. Not one, but two helicopters are shot down with mini-guns, but it’s followed by hamfisted attempts to explain this violence as a product of a patriarchal society.

In a vacuum, any on of these things would make for compelling drama or overblown action. Put them together and the tonal whiplash is such the film should come with a warning label.

That same uncertainty extends to Hemsworth as well. He’s an extremely likeable and charismatic actor who, at his best, has proven worthy as a leading man. Here, he’s boxed in by a character that is neither funny nor tragic, neither hot nor cold. Instead, he lumbers from one scene to the next mechanically killing anyone he meets. But even then the film makes no attempt of using this as a framing device. Is he a mechanical killer out of grief? Loyalty? Love?

Who knows. Certainly not the film.

Which makes Extraction 2 such an ungodly chore to sit through. Like the equally depressing John Wick 4, it’s an action film without any stakes. It’s so in love with the idea of “doing it for real” that the whole thing becomes arbitrary. You can see where the fake single-take shots cut away and there’s always someone just off to the side hopping in place, waiting to get punched by Hemsworth.

It’s the kind of clinical precision that every film of this kind stumbles into these days. Everyone wants to be the action star who does the biggest and most complex scene. Yet the bigger the sequences becomes, the less impressive they are in turn. The choreographed fights meld into one and when the movie comes to a sudden, unearned end, I reached for the remote, thinking I had turned the thing off by accident.

All of this makes me yearn for the days of Cannon Films, where something like the Extraction series would be at home. It’s schlocky, poorly conceived exploitation, and I wish it were honest with itself about what it is. In the 80s, it would star Jean Claude Van Damme and have about a quarter of the budget.

But there would also be something earnest about it. Something a glossy product like this can’t replicate. No matter how hard it tries to sell the fantasy.