Review of The Raid 2 (2014) by Slevin310 — 13 Apr 2014

Please tell me this is the most popular movie out right now. Please, it deserves to be. This movie is without a doubt my favorite fighting film since Bruce Lee's and Tony Jaa's work. This is the best action movie in a long time. To understand why this movie is so amazing you really have to be a fan of martial arts or kung fu movies. A movie with a camera positions that's actually zoomed out far enough to see everything. Actors actually punching/kicking each other (not hard obviously) to really make it look legit. Fight choreography, that you can't see being choreographed. Awesome old school car stunts with real stunt men. Man I'm so happy right now, I haven't seen a movie this awesome in a while. The undercover cop isn't anything new but the way they made their spin on it is perfect. I know they are Indonesian but I they seem like Yakuza to me with their traditions, honor, fighting instead of guns and pride for their territory.

So details (no spoilers don't worry) Raid has always been high paced fast gory action. I enjoyed the Raid Redemption but as far as overall cinematic quality goes it was just gory awesome fighting, without context we won't really care who's fighting who. But Raid 2 provides that context and makes you immersed in it's story and characters. Honestly, I don't mean any offense but I'm surprised this was made by the same people. This movie has amazing shots and they give a great sense of character development by showing us who they are. So Raid 2 not only stands on a high leg from it's amazing action but the cinematic quality is just beautiful. The sad moments really are tragic and the actors display raw emotion which help builds the tension and atmosphere of a scene. And when a character is supposed to be blank, cold and brutal you see that too. Baseball bat boy... oh man he's awesome. The imagery in this film is just perfect. I really don't know what else to say. Yes it's a gory film, over gory? Maybe but it's realistic, if you shoot someone in the face with shotgun they won't have a tiny whole in their head... it will be in pieces everywhere. So I don't see over gory as much as somewhat realistic. Oh it has a lot of gory scenes but I don't think it's over the top.

Please go see this movie, it deserves your money. It works hard for your money. It wants you to have a good time. And a good time you will have. Seriously I want to see more movies like this.