Upon barely surviving his grievous wounds from a dangerous mission in Dhaka, Bengladesh, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is healed and ready to get back into action. He, along with his team, are tasked with their next mission, to rescue a family from feuding Georgian gang members. An intense and at times, emotional release that has just began streaming on Netflix.  

Director: Sam Hargrave
Writers: Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Ande Parks
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani, Adam Bessa, Idris Elba, Olga Kurylenko

After the success that came from the release of Extraction 1 (2020), Netflix opted to create a follow up in the same mould. It must be said that Extraction 2 had some big boots to fill, but the filmmakers did a great job by deploying an equally as fast paced and action-packed story as the first instalment, with little to no on-screen time being wasted.

As expected, a vast majority of screentime was taken up by action-based scenes, with several car chase scenes being noteworthy. There were also some excellent hand-to-hand combat scenes along with the typical, yet enthralling weaponry-based acts, with a variety of weapons on display. There’s also a well publicised twenty-minute single take action sequence that took around four-to-five months to rehearse and almost a month to capture.

From a cinematography point of view, Extraction 2 managed to pull off some great visuals throughout the one-hundred and ninety-two minute runtime, with Vienna, Austria, playing an integral part, while Prague, Czech Republic and Sydney, Australia also being featured. At times, however, the picture did seem a little unbalanced at times, with forced humour injected unnecessarily on more than one occasion, weakening the seriousness of certain situations.

In terms of the cast, Chris Hemsworth commanded the majority of screentime, portraying Tyler Rake, while support reigned in from the likes of Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Bessa, adopting the roles of Nik Khan and Yaz Khan – two characters that also played important moments in the first flick. There were even appearances from Idris Elba and Olga Kurylenko, albeit in less prominent roles.

All in all, I’m not quite sure as to whether Extraction 2 hit the heights that Extraction 1 (2020) did upon its release in 2020. The flick started explosively but didn’t quite maintain the momentum heading into the later stages. With that being said, it still finds itself as being a thoroughly watchable film with sprinkles of solid storytelling and realistic suspense throughout. As previously noted, Extraction 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.

“People pay me to do things they can’t.“

Tyler Rake – Extraction 2