Nobody 2

I guess they had to try to cash in on a sequel. But John Wick: Chapter 2, this ain’t.

Back to being a full-time assassin after the events of the first film, Nobody 2 sees the titular “nobody,” Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), feeling burned out, beat down, and in dire need of a proper vacation. Distant from his wife, Becca (Connie Nielson), and kids after taking on one too many assignments to help pay down his considerable debt to his handler, The Barber (Colin Salmon), Hutch demands a much-deserved break and sets up a trip to a favorite childhood amusement park in the hopes of repairing his familial bonds. Unfortunately for Hutch, it isn’t long before trouble finds him in the form of the amusement park’s owner, Wyatt Martin (John Ortiz), a corrupt local sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks), and crime boss Lendina (Sharon Stone), kick-starting a series of events that not only threatens Hutch’s promise to keep his fists to himself, but the trust his family has in him as a husband and father.

Nobody 2 might be an unnecessary sequel, but I’ll be damned if Bob Odenkirk can’t still give John Wick a run for his money as a bona fide action star. Complete with over-the-top, Jackie Chan-esque fight sequences you can’t help but be impressed by, Nobody 2 benefits, at least at first, from some spot-on humor mixed with surprisingly bloody violence, giving off a familiar kind of energy that would make the original movie proud. Then, somewhere around the halfway mark (probably, earlier, if I’m being honest), the story, acting, and overall inventiveness of Nobody 2 takes a nosedive in one of the biggest choke jobs I’ve seen in cinemas in some time.

Feeling like entire chunks of the movie were excised right out of the edit without so much as attempting to smooth over the gaps left behind, Nobody 2’s already paper thin plot wasn’t doing itself any favors to begin with, with whatever was going on after the halfway mark amounting to it actively shooting itself in the foot. Full of wasted potential and stops and starts that got me excited to go places the script ultimately didn’t care to explore, the odd choice of having Sharon Stone’s villain yell every line she has oddly fits well within the greater context of how bad this movie ended up being, making me more disappointed in what I saw than outright upset about it.

And another thing: I love me some Doc Brown, but let the poor man rest. Dang.

Though Nobody 2 has its moments where the fun and creative action from the original shines through, but thanks to its rushed pacing, pieced-together script, and plot that ends up being nothing special, this one goes down as a half-assed sequel best viewed through a compilation highlighting all the most badass fights in the film that, as I grasp for a silver lining, here, absolutely deserve to be recognized. Nobody 2 doesn’t come close to matching the energy and cleverness of the first film, and while the original was far from perfect, this one is even further from it.