Movie Breakdown: The Raid 2

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing lead us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

Writer/Director Gareth Evans rallies up a sequel to The Raid, one of the better action movies of the last decade or so. Expectations are rightfully high.

The Reality:

The Raid 2 does what any good sequel to an action movie should do – it aims to thoroughly outdo (not repeat) the film that came before it.  I knew the movie would be action heavy and I thought there might be more of a story this time around, but I was actually surprised at how thick The Raid 2 ended up being.  It’s nearly two and a half hours long!  Action flicks shouldn’t have run times like that, but this one does and it utilizes every second.  There’s a plethora of wild, epic action sequences and the film features a twisting (and also somewhat convoluted) plot that’s essentially about a cop turned criminal who wants to root out various levels of corruption.  It might honestly all be too much for one movie, but I loved every bit of it.  If you have an obsession with the action genre, then The Raid 2 is going to please you to no end.

The Lesson:

Bigger is better.