First Take: Sicario 2: Soldado- esta secuela no es tan buena, pero es mucho más brutal

SYNOPSIS-

The drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated as the cartels have begun trafficking terrorists across the US border. To fight the war, federal agent Matt Graver re-teams with the mercurial Alejandro.

2015′s original film was quite rightly hailed as one of the best action thrillers ever made, so the sequel was simply inevitable… but unfortunately the lack of original director Denis Villenueve makes this film feel like a shadow of its predecessor, as there are more issues than there are positive aspects.

Stefano Sollima is the director taking the helm on this one, but while he favours a more gritty style than that exhibited in the first film, clocking in at 2 hours 2 minutes is a move that isn’t a good idea considering the fact that the film opens really strongly and goes downhill very rapidly, something which I think is due to Taylor Sheridan’s script, as there isn’t really any logical reason to progress the narrative further than they have done, especially with such a loose ending like the one presented in this film. The cinematography from Dariusz Wolski is stunning, and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score is effective, but the film felt like it was missing something very valuable: a stand-out performance.

With Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro returning, they are able to slip effortlessly back into their roles, with Brolin continuing his brilliant form of late (after Avengers and Deadpool surpassed all expectations), but the new cast members which include Catherine Keener, Isabela Moner, and a variety of others feel under-developed, and maybe this is due to the lack of a big film defining performance, like the one Emily Blunt gave in the original Sicario. As a standalone film, this works brilliantly, but releasing this as a direct sequel is a very bad move on Lionsgate’s part.

THE VERDICT

Unfortunately this is a disappointing follow-up to what was one of the best action films of 2015, and I left a very messy screen 1 (that’s an inside joke between me and the cinema team that I won’t be explaining here) expecting something way better than this. The fact that it opened in the midst of the World Cup should have been a sign, as it simply wasn’t good enough.

RATING- 3/5