The Raid 2

As good as the first Raid movie is, it was a proof-of-concept project to receive funding for the movie the director actually wanted to make, which was this film. However, this is a film i am incredibly conflicted about. Let’s start with the positives. the color grading and cinematography is much better in this film than the last. Wide aerial shots. dutch angles, top down views of car and train interiors, and the trademark tracking camera for the fight scenes are all incredible. And whereas the first Raid is almost entirely washed out, dirty greens and blues that fit the vibe of the film and make the apartment complex look like a big bruise, this film is dripping with vibrant colors in many of its scenes, as well as the drab blues and greens. Warm, bright colors are especially prominent, reds and yellows and oranges. A very fun film to look at. The plot is also much more ambitious than the first. Raid Redemption follows a relatively simple story; a rookie cop who infiltrates a mobsters apartment complex to retrieve his brother. One location, one plot line, more action than story. Raid 2 is a complex, country traveling undercover cop/gangster thriller, spanning almost an hour longer than the first, and even begins with a Casino reference. incredibly more complex.  the martial artistry, while narrowly not as great and slightly more infrequent as the first film, is a lot more creative. while Redemption used police batons, machetes and knives, Raid 2 gets much more ingenious in the weaponry used. Broken bottles, broom handles, kitchen grills, one scene on a train even features a woman wielding dual hammers as her primary weapon. how cool and unique is that! The action is a lot more dramatic and widescale as well. car chases, gunfights on motorcycles, destruction of buildings, fights starting in one place and ending miles away. very interesting and fun! However, we must get into the downsides of why i feel so conflicted about this film. It’s true that it’s a much more ambitious and complicated film than the first, but i think it lowers the movie a little for me. the first film being contained, simple, and not in much need for a sequel made it rather special to me. Nonstop action, floor after floor, group after group disassembled. Much of this film feels like it wants to be much bigger than the sum of its parts. it feels like a completely different movie than the original, and it probably knows it too. they even recast Yayan Ruhian, the man who plays Mad Dog in the first film, as a completely different character. This honestly makes it very confusing, as Mad Dog dies in the first film.  Another issue is the matter of choreography. while many scenes in this film are absolutely fantastic, there are a handful of scenes that make it incredibly obvious that the hits never land. the biggest and most distracting moment happens near the opening scene, in which a large scale prison fight happens in the mud. many hits come nowhere close to connecting.  i’m incredibly conflicted on this film, not only because of the pros and cons, but because it’s difficult to compare it to it’s predecessor when it feels like a completely separate film. in that regard, i’ll rate it the same i rated the first film; a 4/5. incredible and fun but not without its flaws.