Movie Details
| Title: | The Raid 2 | |
| Director: | Gareth Evans | |
| Year: | 2014 | |
| Genre: | Kung-Fu | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 08.02.14 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Apostle
- The Raid: Redemption
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 08.02.14 | Netflix | So... I remember the first Raid being good but pretty much all I remember now is that the first half was like Dredd with guns and the second half was a fatiguing series of fight scenes one right after the other since everybody's ammo ran out. At the beginning of this one, I thought the movie was in trouble. Now instead of a tight controlled setting we were getting into a broad deep-cover situation like White Heat or something... and all the generic gangster stereotypes start to show up... and I never really got bored or disliked it but at the same time I thought more than once how maybe an Asian crime movie has to involve gangsters machinating against one another and all cops must be undercover so maybe if the first one had more budget it would've included this stuff too or something... But the fight scenes are undeniably fantastic. I mean they are crazy. Every once in a while when a movie does a fight scene really well and you're involved enough you see a move and the film works so well that you physically feel it in your body. It's like a visceral reflex action that takes place. Like a guy gets hit in the nuts SO HARD and SO WELL that you feel it in YOUR nuts. Well, that happened for me pretty consistently at least once per fight here. I mean not always in the nuts, but you know... different places. And the CG is seamless enough to where the violence comes off as real. Well ok several of the weird blood inserts still seem overlaid and took me out of it a bit but for the most part... like if someone gets shot in the head they aren't afraid to show what a real headshot would be. There's a car crash in particular that has a body flying through the windshield and it happens so fast you think it has to be CG but it doesn't matter because that's actually what would happen. So... I feel like I'm rambling. The story was ok, not bad by any means. You can feel the budget and it's used wisely. But really it's the fight scenes. And I didn't feel fatigued like I did in the first. The enemies are a nice bit of Rogue's Gallery where people have special skills and have other fights to show off how badass they are before coming up against our hero. Man, these fight scenes. the prison scene, the car scene, and the end scene are all three classic unbelievable fights. This movie can stand on those alone (which combined is probably still like an hour running time). visceral body reaction |
