Nobody 2 review: Holiday Road or Holiday, No?

While I always assumed a second Nobody movie was in the works, I wondered how they would pull it off. The trick isn’t writing a sequel; it’s writing a good sequel. While the concept of a family man breaking isn’t unusual, the way that the original dealt with it was different, in a good way. What do you do with a broken (fixed?) man to up the ante? You send him on vacation.

A New Li(f)e

The Mansell family has settled into their new home after the first movie. Hutch is in debt up to his ears after the US government paid off his debt for destroying a Russian bank. While his mental health has improved since the first movie, his marital health tells a different story. Becca feels neglected by Hutch’s long work hours and excuses. Feeling mentally drained, Hutch decides to take his family on a vacation with his dad to a spot he took him when he was a kid: Plummerville. A tourist trap complete with a carnival and a perpetually closed waterpark. Bringing his father and ex-FBI agent David (Christopher Lloyd), all Hutch is looking for is a little R&R, but while in town Hutch, being himself, gets in trouble and tangled up in a smuggling plot with an inept sheriff (played by Colin Hanks) and a local bootlegger named Lendina (played by Sharon Stone).

Emotional Arcs

The skeleton of the movie mostly follows the structure of the first Nobody. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel; it retools it. Two movies into the franchise, it was nice to see franchise-specific tropes from the first movie. Starting with agents questioning Hutch about his latest takedown of a criminal organization. Whereas the mundanity of married life was once wearing on Hutch, that feeling has been transferred to Becca (Connie Nielsen) and is shown in quick cuts like in the first movie. There are a few others, but they are spoilery in a way.

That being said, this movie is a different beast altogether. The first Nobody was about Hutch finding himself again when the weight of his responsibilities had made him a shell of the man he once was. In this movie, that man is back in the hyperbolized world he left to become a family man to fix the mistakes made during the first movie, while he is still working a demanding job, albeit in a field much more satisfying for him. The door of this world is wide open and has been ripped off the hinges, whether Becca likes it or not. Hutch has gone on his emotional journey in the first movie. We get all of our emotions from Becca, with hints at a past similar to Hutch’s.

Action and Set Pieces

Setting the film at a run-down amusement park was an interesting choice. I went in with the assumption we were getting something closer to Vacation, but left with more of a Walking Tall vibe, which still works. This “resort” left an opening for different set pieces, and it didn’t disappoint. While doing press for this movie, Odenkirk likened choreographing fights to working in a writer’s room, an approach that paid off well in this movie. Staging fights in an arcade and a “duck” boat were fun ways to change up an action movie using the context of the film. While we get your typical fight scenes in places like a warehouse and an elevator, there is a lot of fun in not trying to show up the previous movie or other action movies. The action is definitely more wacky in Nobody 2. However, if you’ve already committed to this hyperbolized violent world set up in John Wick/Nobody/Bullet Train, then there’s not much difference.

Soundtrack

If you thought the music cues in some of the sequences in the first movie were strange, this one is no different. The movie uses a soundtrack mostly consisting of oldies. The first *Nobodyk* utilized Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” as sort of a thesis statement and refrain for Hutch’s emotional arc. Nobody 2 keeps that trope going for Becca’s arc. Becca is frustrated with her marriage because she loves Hutch so much. Her frustration creates a good contrast for the seemingly liberated Hutch. It’s weird to pair The Spiral Staircase’s “More Today Than Yesterday” with an action movie, yet this movie does it well. It wasn’t on my bingo card to have Offspring’s “Come Out and Play” as a needle drop for one scene. While it was a nice surprise; it made me feel old given the rest of the songs it was grouped with.

What Didn’t Work

This movie isn’t perfect. Colin Hanks playing against type as a corrupt small-town sheriff didn’t work for me. Playing a nice guy is just in his genes. When I saw the preview, I knew this was going to be where I bumped heads with it. I praise him for trying, but his performance fell a little flat for me.

I feel like there were so many layers unexplored in the movie, and I wish they had addressed them with a bit more acknowledgement, but I also recognize films have a runtime, and you have to keep an action film moving. Sometimes Kolstad’s films can take a bit too long a detour, but I keep coming back due to their fun concepts.

Overall Grade: 4 out of 5

Nobody 2 was a good time. In my forties, I only have time for a few things, but Bob Odenkirk and Derek Kolstad movies are those things. I am a fan of the projects they work on, and while Nobody feels like it’s in its own little pocket of the world that Kolstad has established with John Wick, I don’t think I need a crossover as much as a sequel to give the series a proper trilogy and maybe a proper ending.

Read Forrest’s review for the Book of Quint here