Last night I went to see this movie that already premiered on the day before. As I mentioned in my previous posts that there were 4 new movies hitting the Indonesian cinemas and this was the 3rd movie that I saw. There was actually another horror movie that was said to be very good, but I need to build up my courage to see it alone. Lol. But anyway, this movie felt interesting enough as it was a sequel to a critically acclaimed movie back in 2015 titled Sicario. Let us move on to the film itself now.
Brief Story Line
When the US was being attacked by some terrorists who seemed to infiltrate through the border from Mexico with the help from Mexican cartel under the lead of a drug lord named Carlos Reyes, The Secretary of Defense (Matthew Modine - 47 Meters Down, Stranger Things TV series etc) instructed Cynthia Foards (Catherine Keener - Get Out, Incredibles 2 etc) to handle the situation.
She would later assign CIA operative Matt Graver (Josh Brolin - Deadpool 2, Everest etc) to perform a black op mission. Matt's idea was to make war between Reyes' cartel against another cartel by kidnapping his daughter Isabela (Isabela Moner - Transformers: The Last Knight, 100 Things to Do Before High School TV series etc). He gathered his team that included Forsing (Jeffrey Donovan - LBJ, Burn Notice TV series) and enlisted the help from the dangerous hitman Alejandro (Benicio del Toro - Traffic, 21 Grams etc) to finish the mission.
Could Matt, Alejandro and the rest manage to pull of this scheme? Find them all in this brutal action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
I got to admit that this movie did not make it to my most anticipated film of the 2018 summer. I knew very little about it as I had not seen the predecessor before. Which was why I decided to see Sicario first before watching this one. As usual if we are talking about a sequel, we would definitely compare it against the original. Likewise on this case, I could not help but do a comparison as well. Now the first one was an action movie with some touches of drama and heavy on morality message. The main characters involved there were Matt, Alejandro and a female FBI agent played by Emily Blunt. It even got 3 Oscar nominations (one of them cinematography which was indeed quite awesome). Personally it was rather heavy for my taste, though I do admit the appeal for more serious audience looking for good story and not just full action from start to finish.
This sequel was no different as it was also quite heavy on the story. The starting of the movie hinted something that made me thought it would be focusing on the action. But then the pace became a bit slower. And then there was a character of young American of Mexican descendant which did not seem to be having any relations at all but in the end had a major influence on the film. It might be intriguing for some and perhaps could be seen as a smart way of slowly building the character, though I personally felt irritated as I thought it was too slow especially in the beginning.
What I think was my personal let down was the movie seemed to be having multiple storyline that made me wonder the kind of story it was trying to build. It started of like a movie about terrorism, then about the cartel war, then from the middle it was like a story of hitman suddenly having moral dilemma. To my humble opinion, it would probably be nicer if the story was focusing on Alejandro from the beginning, rather than distracting us with the terrorist attacks, because the build up on his story was too long. Don't get me wrong though, Benicio del Toro here really rocked as a crazy brutal hitman with dark personal history (as told in the original movie). And I think his bright performance actually covered the rest of the characters as they seemed pale in comparison. Except probably for the young Isabela Moner who was quite good portraying the kidnapped girl.
One thing that I liked about this movie was definitely the action sequence. It was probably not that many, but when there was, it was always very brutal. Those terrorist attacks scenes gave me a chill as they were really explicitly shown. I don't mind the illogical scene towards the ending as action movies tend to have few if not many of those anyway. And the ending also hinted of possible sequel (which from what I read in the internet, it would seem there would be a third movie). Despite not having Dolby Atmos sound effect, I found that the movie was very good in this area. The explosion and the gun shooting scenes were totally awesome like you were very close to the actual location.
Overall I think this movie was still good, but it may not win the hearts of the critics like its predecessor did. Plus the fact there was no Emily Blunt's character which made that one interesting. This one may be better than the generic action movies as it had serious story. However, I myself was not a fan of this movie due to its lack of focus on the story and the sometimes slower pace that made it felt a bit draggy (it had 122 minutes duration). So if you like the original movie, you might enjoy this one as it still had the interesting Alejandro & Matt characters, but if you are fan of full action movie without too much of build up story, then this might not be too satisfactory. In case you want to give this a try, I really urge you to see the first movie before seeing this one, to give you the understanding of how Alejandro was like he was in here. And of course so you can do comparison like I did. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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