Nobody 2

Nobody 2 is the sequel to 2021’s Nobody, which also starred Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell, a former government assassin who has been trying to live a normal life, until his nature gets the best of him. Following on from the events of the first film, Hutch is in desperate need of a vacation, and decides to take his family, which includes a wife, and two teenagers, a boy and girl, as well as his elderly, also retired assassin father, along with him. After an incident involving someone hitting his daughter, which Hutch seeks to rectify, turns into an all-out war with the local criminal elements, Hutch is forced to protect himself and his family.

Courtesy Universal

It is the rare film that knows precisely what it is and expresses that with both joy and intelligence, while both never taking itself too seriously or insulting the taste and intelligence of the audience. With a supporting cast including Connie Nielsen, Sharon Stone, John Ortiz, Colin Hanks, The RZA and Christopher Lloyd, there is not a false turn here. Everyone is having a blast, much as in the first film. Unlike that film, however, the gore is amped up, in inventive and brutally beautiful ways. The film seems, at times, to be what John Wick wants to be, if only it had a sense of humor.

Where the first film used its urban landscape to tell a tale of eastern European criminals attempting to end Hutch, this one is set at a tropical amusement park-think something like a carnival crossed with a Chuck E Cheese, and you get the idea-where each place within the space is used to full effect in one inventive action sequence after another. Where some action films, like the most recent Mad Max films, use their action to tell story and character, here the action is the story and a character unto itself. It is an expression of how these characters work out their various inner struggles. If that sounds pretentious, it is not, because not only will you have a smile on your face the entire time, but you will grasp this without the film ever once telegraphing it.

Courtesy Universal

Stone plays a ruthless drug lord who has taken over the park and the town it resides in, and launched an empire trafficking in many illicit items. She is brutal, crazy and completely self-absorbed, as are her henchmen. Indeed, this is her ultimate failing, and it can be argued this is what allows Hutch to prevail, because he cares about others and does not only serve himself.

Colin Hanks, playing her crooked sheriff, is hilariously clueless as to the danger he keeps drawing into his boss’s organization, as it is his character, Abel, who takes what could have been a misunderstanding and turns it into an apocalypse. Ortiz, as the put-upon park owner, is allowed a chance to show some layers, while Nielsen starts to become something beyond the loyal and frustrated wife who knows what her husband is up to. It will be very intriguing if the story goes in the direction it appears to be going, if there is a second sequel after this one.

Courtesy Universal

This is a film that, much like the first one, can be summarized fairly easily, but the experience of watching it unfold is what makes it special. With the two Nobody films, one is reminded that action need not be as by the numbers as one finds in far too many superhero films of recent times, nor as muscle-bound as what was normal in the 1980s and 1990s. Hutch is a protagonist that might prevail against very stacked odds, but he is going to get grievously wounded along the way. In this sense, the films owe much to John Wick. For this reviewer’s money, those are excellent examples of the genre, but these are far more entertaining, and this is the rare sequel that may be better than the original.

Nobody 2 is now playing in theaters.