Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Starring: Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra
It would be an understatement to say that I was excited to
watch the sequel to The Raid. Unfortunately, the second film is strikingly
different to the first.
After Rama escapes the building from the original raid, a police official offers him an opportunity to go under cover and wreck the entirety of the Indonesian organised crime ring.
If this film were to consist only of the fight scenes that the movie has, it would be one of the most entertaining experiences put to film. There are great characters who have signature, recognisable weapons who are all part of excellent fight scenes. This being said, the general idea of a lot of the fight scenes is that the main guy you’re looking at walks forward while people attack them one at a time and the camera looks at them from the side. While each of the individual moves is impressive, you know who is going to win the fight and, generally, what it is going to look like. Because of this, the fight scenes that have very few people involved in them are far more impressive and entertaining. The idea of one guy taking on a silly amount of people may sound cool but when you always know the outcome, all suspense is lost.
The biggest difference between this movie and the first is the over abundance in story. There is likely no difference in screen time of story scenes between this movie and the average action film but these scenes drag on so much because of the repetitiveness of them. They all look the same, people sitting down talking in a room we’ve seen multiple times before. It makes it so that even though we should have been interested in the story of the film, we are just left waiting for another fight scene to watch.
I feel that it is important to mention that this is one of those Asian action movies in which people’s bodies become action figures and limbs get snapped like toothpicks. The first raid was blatantly and gratuitously violent but this something else. I think I saw a guy ripping another man’s jaw off with his bare hands. So fair warning, if you are unable to withstand gross violence, you may not enjoy this film.
While this film has a ratio of action to story that really doesn’t work, said action is fantastic when very few people are fighting each other at once. It may seem that I dislike this film but some of these action scenes are some of the best I’ve seen. If only about a third of the story scenes existed, the film would have been outstanding but unfortunately they hold the film back. As much as I would like not to compare the two films in this series because they feel so different, I feel that I must mention that I prefer the first film.
The Raid 2 receives a: 7/10
After Rama escapes the building from the original raid, a police official offers him an opportunity to go under cover and wreck the entirety of the Indonesian organised crime ring.
If this film were to consist only of the fight scenes that the movie has, it would be one of the most entertaining experiences put to film. There are great characters who have signature, recognisable weapons who are all part of excellent fight scenes. This being said, the general idea of a lot of the fight scenes is that the main guy you’re looking at walks forward while people attack them one at a time and the camera looks at them from the side. While each of the individual moves is impressive, you know who is going to win the fight and, generally, what it is going to look like. Because of this, the fight scenes that have very few people involved in them are far more impressive and entertaining. The idea of one guy taking on a silly amount of people may sound cool but when you always know the outcome, all suspense is lost.
The biggest difference between this movie and the first is the over abundance in story. There is likely no difference in screen time of story scenes between this movie and the average action film but these scenes drag on so much because of the repetitiveness of them. They all look the same, people sitting down talking in a room we’ve seen multiple times before. It makes it so that even though we should have been interested in the story of the film, we are just left waiting for another fight scene to watch.
I feel that it is important to mention that this is one of those Asian action movies in which people’s bodies become action figures and limbs get snapped like toothpicks. The first raid was blatantly and gratuitously violent but this something else. I think I saw a guy ripping another man’s jaw off with his bare hands. So fair warning, if you are unable to withstand gross violence, you may not enjoy this film.
While this film has a ratio of action to story that really doesn’t work, said action is fantastic when very few people are fighting each other at once. It may seem that I dislike this film but some of these action scenes are some of the best I’ve seen. If only about a third of the story scenes existed, the film would have been outstanding but unfortunately they hold the film back. As much as I would like not to compare the two films in this series because they feel so different, I feel that I must mention that I prefer the first film.
The Raid 2 receives a: 7/10
Please feel free to leave a comment on either the movie or the review. Say if you liked or disliked the movie. I'm interested to find out what you think!
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