To start off this review, I want to say that I'm a huge fan of the first movie and I think The Raid 1 is one of the best action movies ever made. What the first Raid movie got right was the simplicity and elegance of focusing on one thing and making sure it is done right. Every action sequence in The Raid 1 is fresh, clever, and generally unexpected in some way or another that consistently juggles the audience's expectations as to what is going to happen next during a fight. Pretty much every technique and trick in the book is used in the Raid 1.
The Raid 1 is the Mad Max: Fury Road of martial arts films.
The Raid 2 is the Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome of martial arts films.
I am genuinely surprised at how much love The Raid 2 gets when it is a severely flawed and jumbled mess of a film that has a handful of interesting action sequences that rarely ever reach the same levels of artistry as what the first film had. Bigger doesn't mean better, and while there are really cool set-pieces with a lot of stuff going on, the tension in those scenes is a lot lower due to the fact that 90% of the violence is happening to characters we don't know or care about.
It's just violence for the sake of violence.
Let me give an in-movie example: There is a fairly well known "fight" sequence that shows two assassins brutally murdering killing dozens of men to get to their targets. One is a girl with two hammers who cartoonishly slaughters a bunch of men in a dragged out incredibly violent action sequence and another is a guy with a baseball bat who brutally beats people to death. This scene takes up roughly 5-10 minutes of the movie and adds NOTHING to the movie and actually hinders the pacing and progression of the film while also decreasing the tension of the film. It does the direct opposite of its supposed intention, that being an attempt at raising the stakes by showing the villains our protagonist will have to kill. However, by giving them a pointless action sequence, all other violence in the movie looks tame in comparison and once the protagonist fights these characters, his fight with them IS SHORTER than their introduction.
All the movie needed to do was show Hammer girl enter the train full of people. Cut to the next train stop. Show the girl exiting the train with her hammers and give the audience a peek into the train car full of dead bodies. It would take only 30 seconds to pull off and would give the audience a morbid curiosity and apprehension at who this deadly assassin is without ruining the pacing of the film.
Less is more.
There is also a very strange issue in this movie where an actor who played a major role in the first movie shows up in this film to play a completely different character, but it is never thoroughly explained or referenced that they are a different character because the character was never named in the first film. When watching the film, I was scratching my head as to whether or not this was supposed to be a new character or not. Regardless of who they are supposed to be, their character ALSO adds nothing to the core plot of the movie and it could've easily have been any other character who filled their role.
Yet another character who is given multiple action sequences when none of them add to the narrative.
Now, this next criticism might seem odd, but I genuinely think this movie is too violent for its own good. Usually, movies tend to scale the violence based off of how close the movie is to the end of the film, but this movie randomly spikes in violence every 10-15 seconds, making all of the action scenes feel too similar in intensity and ferocity. Violence needs to be used intentionally and in the first movie every bit of "extreme violence or gore" was always used to great effect by deliberately usurping the audience's expectations. A great example would be the "door kill" from the first movie where no one ever expects it to happen, but when it happens the audience always shouts out in terror or goes "OH SHOOT! I DIDN'T EXPECT THAT!!!". The Raid 2 doesn't have any moments like that because it is CONSTANTLY trying to outdo the violence in the first movie.
The only real redeeming aspects of this movie are whenever the protagonist does something... which is RARE. The vast majority of the film's run time is focused on other characters running around and creating drama while everyone's Rama sits in the sidelines until the third act. Fortunately, the final action sequence of this film is REALLY well done and quite entertaining but it's a shame that it takes over 2 hours to get to it.
After having written this review, I think it quite apparent to me that pacing is by far this movie's greatest issue. Whether it be pacing in violence, character introductions, scene length, or excessive dialogue scenes, this movie quite clearly has major pacing issues that should've been addressed in the editing room. If 15-20 minutes of this movie were removed, I think it would be a much more interesting and engaging product.
If one has ever read Roger Ebert's review of The Raid 1, he infamously gave it a 1 star review, saying that the movie was overly violent, appealed only to the reptilian brain, and was essentially exploiting violence for no artistic value. I strongly disagree with that criticism of The Raid 1... however, all of those criticism can be applied to The Raid 2.
The Raid 1 is the Mad Max: Fury Road of martial arts films.
The Raid 2 is the Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome of martial arts films.
I am genuinely surprised at how much love The Raid 2 gets when it is a severely flawed and jumbled mess of a film that has a handful of interesting action sequences that rarely ever reach the same levels of artistry as what the first film had. Bigger doesn't mean better, and while there are really cool set-pieces with a lot of stuff going on, the tension in those scenes is a lot lower due to the fact that 90% of the violence is happening to characters we don't know or care about.
It's just violence for the sake of violence.
Let me give an in-movie example: There is a fairly well known "fight" sequence that shows two assassins brutally murdering killing dozens of men to get to their targets. One is a girl with two hammers who cartoonishly slaughters a bunch of men in a dragged out incredibly violent action sequence and another is a guy with a baseball bat who brutally beats people to death. This scene takes up roughly 5-10 minutes of the movie and adds NOTHING to the movie and actually hinders the pacing and progression of the film while also decreasing the tension of the film. It does the direct opposite of its supposed intention, that being an attempt at raising the stakes by showing the villains our protagonist will have to kill. However, by giving them a pointless action sequence, all other violence in the movie looks tame in comparison and once the protagonist fights these characters, his fight with them IS SHORTER than their introduction.
All the movie needed to do was show Hammer girl enter the train full of people. Cut to the next train stop. Show the girl exiting the train with her hammers and give the audience a peek into the train car full of dead bodies. It would take only 30 seconds to pull off and would give the audience a morbid curiosity and apprehension at who this deadly assassin is without ruining the pacing of the film.
Less is more.
There is also a very strange issue in this movie where an actor who played a major role in the first movie shows up in this film to play a completely different character, but it is never thoroughly explained or referenced that they are a different character because the character was never named in the first film. When watching the film, I was scratching my head as to whether or not this was supposed to be a new character or not. Regardless of who they are supposed to be, their character ALSO adds nothing to the core plot of the movie and it could've easily have been any other character who filled their role.
Yet another character who is given multiple action sequences when none of them add to the narrative.
Now, this next criticism might seem odd, but I genuinely think this movie is too violent for its own good. Usually, movies tend to scale the violence based off of how close the movie is to the end of the film, but this movie randomly spikes in violence every 10-15 seconds, making all of the action scenes feel too similar in intensity and ferocity. Violence needs to be used intentionally and in the first movie every bit of "extreme violence or gore" was always used to great effect by deliberately usurping the audience's expectations. A great example would be the "door kill" from the first movie where no one ever expects it to happen, but when it happens the audience always shouts out in terror or goes "OH SHOOT! I DIDN'T EXPECT THAT!!!". The Raid 2 doesn't have any moments like that because it is CONSTANTLY trying to outdo the violence in the first movie.
The only real redeeming aspects of this movie are whenever the protagonist does something... which is RARE. The vast majority of the film's run time is focused on other characters running around and creating drama while everyone's Rama sits in the sidelines until the third act. Fortunately, the final action sequence of this film is REALLY well done and quite entertaining but it's a shame that it takes over 2 hours to get to it.
After having written this review, I think it quite apparent to me that pacing is by far this movie's greatest issue. Whether it be pacing in violence, character introductions, scene length, or excessive dialogue scenes, this movie quite clearly has major pacing issues that should've been addressed in the editing room. If 15-20 minutes of this movie were removed, I think it would be a much more interesting and engaging product.
If one has ever read Roger Ebert's review of The Raid 1, he infamously gave it a 1 star review, saying that the movie was overly violent, appealed only to the reptilian brain, and was essentially exploiting violence for no artistic value. I strongly disagree with that criticism of The Raid 1... however, all of those criticism can be applied to The Raid 2.