Extraction 2 review: Chris Hemsworth returns for another nonstop action fest

In Extraction 2, Chris Hemsworth (best known as Thor) returns as Tyler Rake, a hunky, tough dentist facing an amazingly recalcitrant tooth upon whose removal the life of a family depends.

Er … no … actually. Just kidding. In Extraction 2—a nearly nonstop action fest, Hemsworth returns as Tyler Rake, a hunky, tough soldier of fortune, facing a mission upon which the life of a family depends. This may come as a surprise to fans of the first Extraction, since it ended with Tyler taking a bullet in his neck and falling off a bridge deep down into a river, seeming quite definitively dead.

But the original’s huge streaming success on Netflix—reportedly the service’s most-watched original production up to that point—mandated a resurrection. So director Sam Hargrave and writer Joe Russo start the new entry with a reprise of the “death” scene, followed by Tyler washing up ashore and miraculously being revived by a team of medics. To be fair, he is very much the worse for wear, spending months in the hospital and rehab: this gives the story what, in this genre, passes for at least a touch of realism.

It also means that—unlike Extraction, which was more or less all action from scene one—the sequel takes a little longer to gear up into a similar onslaught of action scenes.

Tyler’s faithful boss, Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani), sets him up with a nice retirement cabin in rural Austria, where he seems mildly content with his dog, a laptop, and a big screen TV. She also brings him all his personal belongings—which amount to a shoe box of memorabilia of his ex-wife (Olga Kurylenko) and his son, who died of leukemia at six. Tyler was off fighting in Afghanistan at the time—an abandonment leading to guilt feelings about his past.

After an indeterminate period of time, Tyler is contacted by the mysterious Alcott (Idris Elba), who wants him to unretire. Elba’s two scenes total less than five minutes, which makes sense since, as always, he dominates the screen to a degree that Hemsworth can only dream of. Given Tyler’s diminished condition, he rebuffs the offer of a new mission … until Alcott releases a zinger: this mission involves the Tyler’s ex-wife’s sister, Ketevan (Tinatin Dalakishvili) and her two kids, who are being held in a Georgian prison. Seems that Ketevan’s husband, a mobster, doesn’t have enough juice to get out of jail, but does have enough to arrange for his family to be held there with him.

Talk about upping the stakes: in the first film, Tyler had to rescue the kidnapped son of a crime boss; this time, it’s the son and the daughter and the wife of a crime boss. Plus: now he’s working without Nik and the rest of his team (at least at first).

In terms of action and pacing, the new film isn’t quite as relentless as its predecessor. While the latter was essentially one long chase, Extraction 2 actually has three discrete acts. The prison breakout runs about a half hour, after which Tyler and his in-laws seem safe in a Viennese hospital, where the 5-year-old daughter is being treated for minor injuries.

But thanks to someone’s loose lips, Zurab (Tornike Gogrichiani), the brother/partner of the Georgian mob boss—seeking revenge for the death of Ketevan’s husband during the prison fracas—locates them. But, before Tyler and the rescued family can even finish the pastries that apparently make up the entirety of Viennese hospital food, there are helicopters filled with evildoers shooting through the windows. Luckily, Nik and the team have arrived on the scene as well.

The Vienna escape is another half hour of mayhem, during which roughly half of the local police force is wiped out. Why the Austrian military never shows up remains a mystery. And the final act has Tyler and Nik taking on Zurab’s remaining men and eventually Zurab himself.

As in Extraction, the action sequences are the whole game here, and they do not disappoint. There’s a helicopter landing on a train, lengthy car chases, some North By Northwest-inspired dangling from a ledge, and innumerable room-full-of-killers mano a mano fight scenes.

Most of these are done in what appear to be impossibly long single shots. The prior film had an 11-minute take; this time, one shot nearly doubles that. To the filmmakers’ credit, they admit that they used some editing trickery to achieve that effect. But these sequences are nonetheless truly impressive; you watch in amazement as the complicated fight choreography, involving dozens of stunt men and hundreds of gunshots and explosions, goes on and on.

The whole business with Tyler’s family—only hinted at in Extraction—gives the movie a little more emotional oomph, but make no mistake. This is still almost all action. And it goes without saying that, if you have any squeamishness about violence, this is definitely not for you.