Critics reviews

The only thing out there that’s on this level formally is, of course, the John Wick series. But those films are elegant and elaborate and gorgeous; they’re sleekly loaded with metatext and humor. Extraction 2 is, like Rake himself, a giant blunt-force killing machine with absolutely nothing on its mind — well, nothing good anyway.

Extraction II is a tedious by-the-numbers genre exercise from which all vestiges of innovation, originality, and joy have been systematically removed. Director Sam Hargrave is best known as a stunt coordinator, and as with his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his action sequences don’t have much sense of originality or fun.

Hemsworth’s magnetic charisma makes him the ideal action hero star, with the bombastic scenes and jaw-dropping camerawork cementing Hargrave’s status as a filmmaker. Extraction 2 is an enjoyable and fun outing, even if its bland writing has a habit of interrupting the action.

Directed by Sam Hargrave, the film has that curious mixture of proficiency and unmemorability that is the hallmark of a Russo brothers production. There’s not an idea in it whose path has not been smoothed by its use elsewhere.

Certain action movies rely mainly on getting the viewer excited about the inventive stunt work and pyrotechnics onscreen with little care given to establishing any real emotional engagement. Extraction 2 can’t quite pretend to be one of those, because it does try to move us — and mostly fails.

The sum total is superior in every way to what [Hargrave] dished out [in Extraction]. With a third one openly teased at the end, the fog has lifted: Hemsworth has landed on his Bourne, and this is his Supremacy.

A seemingly uncut 20-minute shot [in Extraction 2] is unlike anything yet committed to film in terms of ambition and sheer audacious dazzle... The rest, much like the first Extraction, fizzles out into disappointed repetition.

The series hedges its bets to appeal to what it apparently considers its main audience: viewers who deem anything related to characterization and atmosphere to be "filler." Still, you might appreciate the series' attempts to anchor military-adjacent shoot-'em-up adventures in something like reality, and give all of its major characters situations to play that are a step above the standard action film tropes.

[Extraction 2 is] an assault on the senses, especially the ears and the nerves, but it’s also a satisfyingly merciless action thriller that manages to build on the scale and ambition of the first. Roll on the inevitable threequel.

Drab [and] brawny... [Extraction 2] offers a turgid shadow of the type of crowd-pleasing escapism that action blockbusters used to provide... Hemsworth and Farahani do their best to rise above the saccharine material, grasping for human moments amid the vacuous melees. But burdened by its bluster, “Extraction 2” is merely a loud, blithering mess masquerading as fulfilling escapism.

The first Extraction was entertaining enough but this new one is just cynically about extracting the cash.

In terms of dialogue and character development, the sequel leaves much to be desired, even if it attempts to fill in some of the emotional blanks of its central character, who makes Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name seem like a chatterbox.