Review of The Raid 2 (2014) by Hugh R — 07 Mar 2015

Well, that was unpleasant. Wait, let me take that back. It wasn't COMPLETELY unpleasant. There were many good points. They just couldn't make up for the parts that were not. The camera work is good, the production values are quite high, and the action choreography was EXCEPTIONAL in every way. But let's be honest, when making an action film in general you have to at least attempt those items as a bare minimum. When making a sequel to The Raid, you had better darn well be amazing. Granted, this movie excelled in those areas, but let us return to my initial statement.

This movie was hard to watch. Let's begin with the least offensive matter, the dubbing. When you translate a film for a foreign audience there are a few items you should have on your checklist. Does the dubbing sound like it is happening in the same space as the character and is blended well instead of laying on top of the sound track like a dead elephant? OK, so The Raid 2 missed that one. Are the voice actors even TRYING to sound like they are feeling the emotions of the characters? Missed that one, too, huh? Did you bother trying to find more than one voice actor to overdub every single person in the movie? No? Just got some hobo from the parking lot to sleepwalk through every male character's dialogue? Good enough. Ship it.

Item Number Two: The story. It makes little sense and the characters are nearly all idiots to a one. Characters and motivations are so thin I could have used them as tracing paper. It feels as though, in spite of the film's two and a half hour run time, that another hours' worth of story was hacked out with a dull axe. I understand that plot and characters typically take a back seat to the action and the emotion of the moment in these movies, but it can, and has, been done far better. In The Raid 2 plot threads and characters show up without explanation or seeming connection to ANYTHING merely to facilitate introducing new victims and locations for the next increasingly violent fight. Which brings me to my final point.

The violence. More specifically, the gore. OK, this is a martial arts film. There's gonna be a few fights. They need to feel real and they need to look good. This movie's got that in spades. Every punch, every kick, every action taken by these incredibly talented and hardworking people has impact, weight, the fights are amazing...EXCEPT. They go WAY too far in the gore department. You've heard of the term "Torture Porn?" This is "Gore Porn.".

In the first Raid film there was gore, but it seemed to come as a result of the situation and not the other way around. Here it seems as though the fights were designed around how to best present the most disgusting visuals. Now, I have long been a proponent of showing the consequences of violence in movies. Dumbing down shootouts in American action films to where a gunshot is no more inconvenient than a puff of smoke coming from a bullet wound, just to get a PG-13 rating, is insulting and it removes all impact of the action and therefore removes all stakes from the story on a sub-conscious level. When violence occurs the audience needs to feel like there is actual weight to the decision to harm another human being. But here? The movie practically revels in the opportunity to horribly torture, maim, dismember, burn, and gut every single person in a fifteen mile radius. When a man holds someone's head on a hibachi until his face peels off on the cook surface, and then the camera lingers on the oozing results, you have to ask what the rationale was other than being shocking or disgusting enough to evoke a reaction the script and the actors seem incapable of getting otherwise. In another scene our hero smashes an assassin so hard in the mouth with a baseball bat that the bat stays imbedded in his shattered, mushy, and dripping skull as his body goes limp.

In short, if you want an amazing martial arts movie with mind blowing fight scenes, and realistic violence and gore based around a decent story, watch the original Raid. If you want Kung-Fu "Gore Porn" (pencak silat, actually) where a woman shreds ten guys to pulled pork with a pair of claw hammers, watch the sequel. Just don't watch it while you eat. Or before. Or after.

As a side note, I was constantly confused by the random appearance of firearms. If access to guns is so easy, then why do all of the thugs use clubs and knives? I know this is a martial arts movie and a gun would end the film pretty darn quick, but at least in the first Raid there was a REASON guns fell out of use after the first act. when outfitting your baddies for a gang war you might want to head over to the local black market gun shop, guys. The machetes don't seem to be cutting it.