With all of the gunfire, explosions, and other chaos in "Extraction 2," it wouldn't be a
surprise if you missed a few of the quieter or subtler moments.
Don't worry, we're here to help.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Many fans were confused when "Extraction 2" was first announced and producers Anthony
and Joe Russo made clear that it would be a sequel.
That's because at the end of "Extraction," Tyler Rake is left for dead, and there doesn't
seem like there's any way he could survive, no matter what little Ovi sees at the swimming
pool.
Still, Rake is back, and the beginning of "Extraction 2" recreates the first film's
ending to show us how he made it out alive.
If you weren't paying close attention during this sequence, you might have missed the fact
that he appears to have been in a coma for several months.
Watch closely during Rake's time in a hospital bed and you'll notice the attending nurse
is trimming his beard and clipping his nails while he's in a coma.
It's a quick montage, but it's enough to suggest that Rake spent more than a few days, or even
weeks, in the hospital close to death.
This is supported by the fact that even Yaz feels that Nik should pull the plug and let
Rake die in peace.
"You wanted to pull the plug."
"No, that's not true.
She lies."
"You would have been doing me a favor."
It's unlikely that they'd consider taking their friend off life support if he was in
a coma for mere days, but when you realize he's been unconscious for months, their conversation
starts to make a lot more sense.
Eventually, Rake recovers and spends several more months recuperating, with Nik noting
that it has been nine months since the attack on the bridge.
Hardened killers, paid assassins, and deadly mercenaries like Tyler Rake and his team often
operate with their own moral code.
Rake has proven he's more than just a contract killer by helping the young boy Ovi, even
when his client is unable to pay for his services.
But Rake and his team also show they are a different breed of merc with the cars they
drive.
That's because if you look closely, you'll notice that Nik Khan is behind the wheel of
a Volkswagen ID.4 EV.
First introduced in 2020, the ID.4 is a mass-market electric car with an eco-friendly interior
and a crossover SUV-sedan normally priced in the $40,000 to $50,000 range.
It was also named World Car of the Year in 2021 and was called the "backbone of sustainable,
emission-free mobility" by TopSpeed.com.
The Volkswagen ID.4 might stand out as somewhat unusual for Nik and Yaz, who normally use
only the best and often most expensive equipment known to those in their line of work.
However, it's possible that in ferrying Rake to his isolated cabin, they wanted to be somewhat
less conspicuous than usual.
Actor Chris Hemsworth has made a name for himself playing fantastical characters.
This includes, of course, his role as Thor in the MCU.
But it also includes his part as the legendary huntsman in "Snow White and the Huntsman,"
and 23rd century Starfleet officer and George Kirk in 2009's "Star Trek."
But in "Extraction" and its sequel, Hemsworth plays a role at least somewhat closer to home.
Tyler Rake is an Australian native, just like Hemsworth.
In "Extraction 2," we get our first look at what Tyler Rake is like in his personal life,
and the glimpse reveals some details he has in common with Chris Hemsworth.
While he's recovering in his cabin, Rake is seen taking in an Australian Football League
game, and the one he's enjoying is no random match-up.
In fact, it's a game between the Brisbane Lions and the Western Bulldogs.
Fans of Hemsworth might know that the actor is an avid supporter of Western.
He often posts his love for the team on social media, and in September of 2021, he even posted
an over-the-top shirtless reaction to the Bulldogs' win over Brisbane, which is the
same game that Tyler Rake watches in "Extraction 2."
Tyler Rake does more than just watch football while recovering from his injuries.
He also spends time ice fishing and playing with his dog.
But when Nik and Yaz leave him with several of his personal effects, he also spends some
time reminiscing about his old life.
Opening a box of letters, he fishes out some correspondence from his ex-wife Mia, who we
never meet in the first film.
All we know from that movie is that he once had a child who died very young, and he wasn't
there when he passed away.
The guilt of that experience has haunted Rake since.
But while the film shows Rake reading a letter from Mia, it doesn't linger on the missive.
If the scene is paused, however, the letter can be read in full, and it reveals some important
information that becomes clearer later in the film.
It opens with Mia admitting to having trouble writing the note, and she reveals that she
doesn't blame her ex-husband for leaving.
More than that, though, Mia tells Rake to move on with his life and not bear the guilt
of having left them before their son's death.
She says that their son never saw his father as a disappointment, ending the letter with
the touching note that Tyler was his son's hero.
Beyond the letters that Rake unearths from his ex-wife, he also discovers a small flash
drive.
It's full of old home movies of his life prior to becoming a mercenary.
The home movies show us Rake's wife for the first time, as well as footage of their young
son playing on a beach before his terminal illness.
If you remember the first "Extraction" movie, these images may ring a bell.
That's because flashes of imagery from these home movies were shown in "Extraction."
Looking closely, they're flashbacks to that same beach outing for the Rake family, with
their son running along the surf.
This time, however, we're given more context which comes up later in the film.
Though we don't see it in the home movie, their day at the beach was also spent with
Rake's sister-in-law and her young son Sandro, who Rake must now fight to protect.
"Extraction" in 2020 gave us very little information on the early days of Tyler Rake.
Most of what we knew about this mysterious, enigmatic figure involved how lethal he could
be.
All we learn about his private life from the first movie is that he once had a wife.
In "Extraction 2," we finally meet her in the flesh.
When she shows up on-screen, she is played by actress Olga Kurylenko.
Viewers who have seen ﻿Kurylenko in other movies might not recognize her.
In "Extraction 2," she has long, flowing hair instead of the shorter cropped cuts she sported
in "Quantum of Solace" and "Oblivion."
Kurylenko also has a connection to the MCU.
The actress played the role of Taskmaster in 2021's "Black Widow," though she has so
little dialogue and so few minutes unmasked on screen that you might not have recognized
her in that film at all.
At the beginning of "Extraction 2," Tyler Rake is still in the hospital, unable to walk,
and using a wheelchair to get around.
Visited by his colleagues Nik and Yaz, Rake is wheeled around the hospital grounds and
chides Yaz and Nik about not letting him die in peace.
When we see Yaz, though, he's wearing a very fancy silk shirt, and Rake pokes fun at the
ostentatious piece of attire.
Yaz remarks that he'll get Tyler one just like it, and that's exactly what he does.
What Rake doesn't realize is that the shirt is no ordinary piece of clothing.
When Rake is visited by Idris Elba's shadowy unnamed agent a little later, we discover
that Rake has given the shirt to his dog which Elba's character notices.
"Is that dog wearing a Valentino shirt?"
"Yeah, a friend got it for him."
That's when eagle-eared audiences will realize just how pricey the piece of pup clothing
is.
Valentino silk shirts can regularly run as high as $1,500, with some fetching as much
as $2,000.
Given the high price these mercenaries charge for their services, with their fee being out
of reach even for a powerful drug lord in the first movie, it makes sense that Yaz would
settle for nothing less than the finest clothes that money can buy.
"Extraction" was directed by Sam Hargrave, who clearly put his experience as a stunt
coordinator on movies including "Avengers: Endgame" and "Atomic Blonde" to good use.
This included filming an astonishing action sequence that used visual trickery and impressive
stunt and camera work to create the illusion of an uninterrupted sequence in one of the
movie's climactic action sequences.
In the sequel, though, Hargrave topped himself with an even more impressive action scene
that jumps from location to location.
Beginning in a Georgian prison, the sequence kicks off when Tyler's rescue of his sister-in-law,
niece, and nephew is noticed by other prisoners.
As cell doors open and dangerous criminals are set loose, Rake must protect the three
innocent lives from a prison riot.
This includes a vicious fight with a deadly gangster and a brutal melee in a prison yard
where Rake battles both hardened killers and riot police.
Eventually, with help from Nik and Yaz, the trio manages to escape the prison, but it's
not over yet.
The action moves seamlessly into a guns-blazing car chase through a winter forest where they're
hounded by heavily armed gunmen on motorcycles before their truck is obliterated and they're
cornered in a steel mill.
Evading their pursuers, Rake gets his family onto a moving train where they come under
assault from an attack helicopter.
Rake destroys it with a massive M240 machine gun before the action comes to an end.
It's all so well-executed that you might not have noticed that the entire sequence runs
an eye-popping 20 minutes.
In "Extraction," Tyler Rake is hired to rescue the kidnapped son of a jailed crime lord,
which takes him from Australia to Bangladesh.
The sequel, "Extraction 2," gives Rake a new, more personal assignment.
He has to rescue his ex-wife's sister, and her two young children who are being held
in a Georgian prison.
His former sister-in-law's husband is a notorious crime boss and brother to the movie's main
villain, Zurab.
A brutal tyrant, Zurab is a tragic figure in some ways.
He was raised with his younger brother by a dangerous and violent gang leader.
"To survive the streets of Yerevan, they turned to a life of crime."
Throughout the film, Zurab is seen with a hearing aid, and it's during a brief flashback
that audiences get a subtle detail about why he needs the device in the first place.
While mourning the death of his brother at the hands of Tyler Rake, Zurab remembers how
their father would discipline him for not protecting his younger brother.
During one violent confrontation, after he failed to prevent his little brother from
being abused by a schoolyard bully, Zurab is beaten by their father.
Look closely, and you'll see a long stream of blood coming from young Zurab's ear, which
then cuts directly to his hearing aid back in the present day.
For many in Hollywood, getting large tattoos can be a risky move, because they require
extensive make-up to cover up on film.
Thankfully for star Chris Hemsworth, his character Tyler Rake is just the kind of man who'd be
adorned in body ink, of which we see plenty in the "Extraction" films.
We got a glimpse at Rake's large back tattoo that depicts a series of Norse runes, which
was designed for the movie.
But in "Extraction 2" we see a series of tattoos on Rake that are much more personal.
The scene in question has Rake cleaning up his wounds after a bone-crunching fight, and
he holds out his left arm.
On the inside of his forearm, we see three small figures, but they don't have any Norse
meaning this time around.
These are Hemsworth's real tattoos, and they have quite a unique origin.
According to the actor in an interview with "Men's Health," those three symbols, a pair
of uneven geometric star patterns and a strange web-like wheel, were actually designed by
his daughter, India, who was up past her bedtime while he and a friend were brainstorming ideas
for his next tattoo.
Across two taut adventures, Tyler Rake has used every weapon at his disposal, from small
firearms to big machine guns, and from knives and axes to a flaming fist.
But at the climax of "Extraction 2," when he has a one-on-one showdown with Zurab, Rake
reaches for another weapon that fans of Chris Hemsworth will recognize.
It happens in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but while facing off with Zurab, Rake loses
his gun and looks for anything he can use as a weapon.
What he finds is a hearty hammer that's reminiscent of another weapon the actor has wielded before.
A clear tip of the cap to Hemsworth's role as Thor in the MCU, the hammer that Rake tries
to grab bears a strong likeness to Mjolnir, with its block hammer profile and long wooden
handle.
Unfortunately, Rake lacks Thor's ability to summon the hammer from afar, and Zurab is
able to strike him with a makeshift weapon of his own before he can reach it.