Back from the brink of death, commando Tyler Rake embarks on a dangerous mission to save a ruthless gangster's imprisoned family.
Director: Sam Hargrave
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani, Adam Bessa, Olga Kurylenko, Daniel Bernhardt, Tinatin Dalakishvili, Idris Elba
Release Date: June 16, 2023
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rated R for strong/bloody violence throughout and language
Runtime: 2h 2m
Sam Hargrave's follow up to his pandemic hit doesn't offer a lot more in terms of story as it plays fairly close to the original's plot simply switching out targets and adversaries. The film's main draw is its action sequences and they are taken to another level of coordinated madness that nearly makes you forgot about the incredibly barebones story driving the entire thing. Hargrave spends very little time explaining how Hemsworth's Rake survived a seemingly fatal wound at the end of the original. Once that's out of way, a rather intriguing appearance from Idris Elba starts the story in earnest. The set up is fairly basic as we're introduced to an array of Eastern European bad guys straight from central casting. They're disposable fodder that serves as nothing more than meat for the grinder. It quickly leads to the 22 unbroken shot that's impressive in terms of the sheer scale due to all the moving parts involved in coordinating the carnage thrown onscreen. Its audaciously outlandish and insane but it's hard not to enjoy the action spectacle thrown at the audience in steady succession. The rest of the film still has plenty of set pieces following the prison escape but that moment is definitely the most memorable of the entire film. Sadly, the story doesn't get nearly the same amount of attention that the action does since it does the bare minimum to make the character more three dimensional. The cast, for their part, do their best to make the characters more interesting and engaging than what's written on the page. Chris Hemsworth's leads the film with the same steely dogged determination that he brought in the original. The film doesn't ask him to do much more than be a believable killing machine as he dispatches enemy with a impressive gusto, people of a certain age might get flashbacks of 1985's Commando which less quips. Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Bessa are given far more to do in this entry with Farahani taking full advantage of the expanded screen time. Hemsworth and Farahani share some great chemistry together, the third film would be wise to take as much time with the characters as it does with the action sequences.
B-
