So sequels are hard. Whether it be a sophomore album, a second novel, or the second franchise film, the pitfalls seem to be the same. The vast majority commit one of two major sins; the first being just delivering the same product again to diminishing returns, and the second being getting wildly over-ambitious and losing what made you great in the first place.
This second sin can either be a product of fear, of repeating yourself and being seen as a one trick pony, or of being completely overshadowed by your previous accomplishment, or it can be a product of hubris, of thinking that you’ve earned an inexhaustible amount of goodwill and that more of your particular vision can’t be anything but geat. I’m not sure what exactly happened with The Raid 2, but I suspect hubris is the culprit. The Raid is, simply put, one of the best action movies of all time. A new standard, and one that people recognized and tripped over themselves to promote and worship. I can’t imagine that praise and the anticipation of the sequel didn’t go to director Gareth Evans’ head a little bit.
The Raid 2 is undeniably bigger than the original, but it is a case of more is less. It doesn’t quite suffocate under its own ambitions the way something like The Matrix sequels did, but it certainly lacks the impact that The Raid had. Gone is the incredibly economical narrative that worked so well in The Raid. That story was almost laughably simple. There’s a bad guy at the top of the tower, we gotta get him. That’s it. While that doesn’t seem to lend itself to a feature film, it’s really all you need. It gives the audience a clear goal and allows them go on the ride with their hero. Die Hard, Jaws, Alien, and countless other classic movies have similarly simple plots and also have sequels that lost the plot in the same fashion. The movies are propulsive and exciting because of the simple goals, not in spite of them. We waste no time trying to understand story complexity and are instead in the action with our hero working towards our goal.
In The Raid 2, that incredible economical narrative is replaced by a convoluted, but rather generic, crime saga of rival gangs and undercover cops. It also adds nearly an hour to the runtime of the original. Two and a half hours is fine if you’re The Godfather, but it feels awfully drawn out here. The Raid 2 has been advertised as picking up the second the first ended, but that’s not exactly true. We don’t follow our hero Rama, as played again by Iko Uwais, as he exits the tower from the first. Instead we are introduced to a new set of bad guys who very quickly get rid of any remaining characters from the first film and then we are shot forward in time by a significant amount. From here on out The Raid 2 is essentially stand alone and doesn’t have any connection to the first apart from Rama. Rama is now undercover and trying to infiltrate an Indonesian crime family in hopes of rooting out corrupt cops under the gang’s control. Things get complicated quickly as the son of the Indonesian crime lord tries to make a power play by starting a war with a rival Japanese gang and Rama gets pulled in deeper than he expected. Yada Yada.
I can’t fault Evans for having some narrative ambition but the truth is no one is here for the story, and it just isn’t good enough to justify its existence. It also completely destroys the propulsive pace of the original. We are no longer quite sure what our goal is or if we are making progress in achieving it. We aren’t even sure who our hero is anymore. Iko Uwais is sadly sidelined for a huge chunk of this film. He plays almost no major role in the primary plot, often just standing in the background as things happen. He only gets the spotlight when it’s time to fight, which makes his action scenes feel disconnected from the rest of the film, which then makes us not really care. This is the case with most of the action in the film until we reach the finale. There are long stretches of no action and then when an action set piece does rear its head, it feels shoehorned in instead of natural and essential. In fact, several of the major action set pieces in the film could be completely removed without damaging the movie at all. Removing them would actually help the pacing tremendously.
The best example of this is an entire subplot involving Yayan Ruhian, who you might remember as one of the big bads who was killed in the climactic fight scene of the previous movie. I understand the desire to bring this actor back as he was a fan favorite and is a great martial artist, but he is also incredibly recognizable and having him play a different character is very distracting. It doesn’t help that his character has very little reason to exist apart from having an excuse to show Yayan fighting. This, again, just makes it hard to care when he’s fighting for his life. It just doesn’t really matter.
That’s the biggest shame here. Viewed in a vacuum, there is some incredible action on display. The set pieces are objectively bigger and better than they were in The Raid, but the lack of narrative drive just robs them of any impact. Action has to tell a story, not just be action for action’s sake. There is way too much action for action’s sake here, and it’s just not inventive enough to overcome the narrative slackness.
The one moment the movie really comes alive and shows some much needed imagination is with the introduction of Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man (yes, this is actually how they are credited). This is a brother and sister assassination squad introduced late in the film. We don’t get to know much about them but they are given enough character quirks to allow you to start inventing a backstory (I’d expect a fair amount of fan fiction and cosplaying of the pair). Hammer Girl is deaf, never takes off her sunglasses, and uses ( surprise surprise) a pair of hammers as unique fighting weapons. Baseball Bat Man is straight out of Paranoia Agent as he eerily drags his baseball bat around before exploding with violence. The film really comes alive with these characters and had me pining for a film full of more iconic villains with unique styles to pit Rama against.
I realize I’m coming off as unnecessarily harsh, especially for a movie many are calling the best action movie ever made. You can certainly watch this and have a great time with it. It has undeniably great action. It just really fails at giving that action any purpose. It somehow manages to make it a bit boring, something I never thought I’d be saying.
Final Score: 3/5