Movie Review: Nobody 2
2021’s Nobody was one of the biggest surprises of that year. In a post-pandemic cinematic experience, seeing funny-man Bob Odenkirk turn into John Wick for 90 minutes was more fun and entertaining than I ever expected.
Nobody 2 fails to conjure up the same spark that the first film did. It does feature bone-cracking action and a slew of dead bodies, but the magic of seeing Odenkirk become a super assassin has vanished, despite the film relying almost entirely on that idea.
Following the events of the first film, Nobody 2 finds Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) forced to undertake a series of missions to repay the money he spent when he destroyed a Russian bank. He’s barely home, his family resents him, and with every mission becomes more battered and bruised, though not nearly as badly as the people he takes care of. Hutch needs a break and needs to spend time with his family, so they take a vacation to the small town of Plummerville, which has a waterpark, a fair, and hot dogs.
Hutch’s vacation begins to go awry when he stumbles on town corruption. Following a scuffle at a local arcade, Hutch becomes the target of the town sheriff (Colin Hanks) and Wyatt Martin (John Ortiz), who “runs” the town and oversees all the illegal activities taking place. As Hutch digs deeper, he discovers Plummerville is run by a psychotic and violent Lendina (Sharon Stone), who is part of a much bigger and more dangerous syndicate.
Nobody 2 remembers how much we loved seeing Bob Odenkirk, now in his early 60s, take out large groups of henchmen, and they give us no shortage of that in the film. Nobody 2’s runtime comes in at a breezy 89 minutes, and that might include credits, and I would wager a guess in saying that over one-third of the film is seeing Hutch fighting. Whether through flashbacks of his missions to pay off the debt or the melee at the water park in the film’s finale, there is no shortage of fight scenes. But the fight sequences don’t hit as hard as they did in the first film because the most exciting aspect of the fights in the first film was seeing Odenkirk fighting. Nobody who was watching Nobody expected Bob Odenkirk to kick as much ass as Keanu Reeves or Jackie Chan. Now that we know he can do it, it’s still fun, but the surprise aspect of it is gone.
My biggest frustration with Nobody 2 came from the lack of character development. Nobody 2 tries to give Hutch’s family a little more to do, but only gives us sprinkles of ideas and does nothing with them. We learn that Hutch’s wife (Connie Nielsen) may have a darker side to her, and that Hutch’s gene for unleashing anger and frustration with violence may have been passed on to his son (Gage Munroe). We also get more interaction with Hutch’s father (Christopher Lloyd) and brother (RZA, an absolute scene-stealer). The sprinkles of additional character development are interesting, and I wish the movie did more with them. Even the characters in Plummerville and Lendina offer some intrigue, but are given nothing to do despite being played by talented actors.
Despite some fun action sequences, Nobody 2 is ultimately a forgettable film that tries to repeat the magic of the first film, only for it to feel reheated and uninspired.
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