REWIND REVIEW: The Raid 2

MOVIE
The Raid 2

CAST
Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra

RATING
R

RELEASE
March 28, 2014

DIRECTOR
Gareth Evans

STUDIO
Sony Pictures Classics

RUNNING TIME
2 hours 30 minutes






STARS
***1/2








REVIEW:

Two years after the action genre produced a worthy film in the form of "The Raid: Redemption," director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais return to continue the story with "The Raid 2."  This sequel picks up right where the first one ended and sees our protagonist Rama being recruited to go undercover and infiltrate an underground mob society in order to expose them of their crimes.  By raising the budget, increasing the amount of locations, and adding nearly an hour's worth of material compared to the first movie, Evans has made a bigger, crazier, and even cooler sequel to an already cool movie.  In terms of action, cinematography, and choreography, this sequel tops the original by a long shot.  Having said that, there were things that I enjoyed more in the predecessor than I did here.

I do feel like the first film had a stronger narrative and more interesting characters, but the action here is definitely better this time around.  Not to mention, there's this deaf girl here wielding two hammers as her weapons of choice who steals every single scene she's in.  Overall, "The Raid 2" has better martial arts choreography and action sequences, not to mention the acting is pretty solid, but the first movie had this sort of charm and intimacy in its one building setting that, in the end, I consider both films to be equal.  Definitely check both out if you're a fan of action movies, and I'd even recommend checking them out back to back.  It'd be a long day for sure, but it'd be a long day full of awesome fighting, gore, and fun.