Nobody 2

In Nobody 2, Hutch Mansell, a former assassin turned suburban dad, takes his family—wife Becca, son Brady, daughter Sammy, and father David—to Wild Bill’s Majestic Midway and Waterpark for a vacation. Still in debt to the Russian mob, Hutch’s attempt at family bonding spirals into chaos when a clash with local bullies entangles him with a corrupt theme park operator, a shady sheriff, and a ruthless crime boss, Lendina. As secrets about Hutch and Becca’s past unravel, he unleashes his lethal skills to protect his family.

Nobody 2 Review

Nobody 2 has the distinction of providing the steepest quality decline mid-film since Hancock, but unlike Hancock, they didn’t wait until the halfway point.

                   

As the film opens, we’re treated to a fun little adventure that establishes Hutch’s (Odenkirk) life/work imbalance as he struggles to pay off the $30m debt he incurred when he burnt the stacks of cash in the original. His wife is unhappy, his children are unhappy, and he’s exhausted… from all the murder.

By smashing together the everyday grind of family life with the wild, blood-soaked chaos of Hutch’s secret job, guys will see themselves in Hutch’s quiet dread of his wife’s unspoken frustration. It hits like a gut punch, and that sinking feeling of letting her down while doing the right thing stings all too real because even knowing he’s stuck in a cycle, Hutch can’t just pump the brakes. His juxtaposed lives have him pinned, and you feel that tension in your bones while simultaneously appreciating the humor inherent in this ridiculously exaggerated example of real life. It’s why people go to the movies.

Then Act II begins, and the alcohol kicks in because everything from the 16th-rate dialogue to each character’s unnatural behavior slurs into a goo of boring, overwrought clichés all punctuated by one of the worst performances ever filmed. Sharon Stone, who is best known for her wildlife shows, especially that of the North American beaver, gives a horrifically awful turn as a villain, so schlocky, over the top, and empty, it makes Dennis Hopper’s Koopa in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. look like an Oscar winning performance (back when that meant something). It’s not entirely her fault; the script had her spouting dialogue so bad that she should be applauded for keeping a straight face.

Nothing was helped by a plot that remains a needlessly ambiguous mystery until Stone’s introduction in the last few minutes. From there, it’s a rush to get everyone into their places for a half-hearted attempt at recapturing the big-boy Home Alone vibes from the original’s climactic final showdown.

Between the stellar first act and this flaccid climax, the family stumbles around aimlessly courtesy of a script clueless about what to do with them. Then, a series of meaningless side characters with dangling subplots eat up time while also giving Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch an excuse to liquidate various groups of randos. That’s really the only thing that Nobody 2 gets consistently right. With the exception of the final battle, the violence is almost as much fun as the original. Odenkirk is always a joy to watch, and he once again infuses Hutch with a ton of humanity amidst the chaos. Only this time it’s in a film that in no way deserves his brilliance.

As sequels go, it’s safe to say that Nobody 2 is a major disappointment.

WOKE REPORT

Stone Cold Suck

• Sharon Stone plays the film’s primary villain, and she is just awful. Miscasting aside, the tiny, near septuagenarian is utterly unbelievable as a crime boss (there is no reason that large, violent men would follow her). More than that, she is a cartoonishly stereotypical “tough” woman ripped from the pages of late 2000s cinema.
• Stone’s two lead henchmen are, of course, henchwomen, and unsurprisingly, they are the toughest hombres in the whole film. Throughout the movie, Bob Odenkirk single-handedly destroys multiple roomsful of armed (often with machine guns), experienced, and trained male killers much larger than himself, but these two 5’5″ girls nearly take him out, if not for some outside intervention.
• Odenkirk doesn’t even get to
  Spoiler

  kill the main bad guy/girl. No, Stone nearly gets the best of him. Were it not for her monologuing rather than simply slicing his throat, Odenkirk’s character’s wife (who was a simple real estate agent in the first Nobody) would never have had time to shoot Stone in the face. That’s right. Out of nowhere, she’s become a marksman rifle savant, who must rescue her pseudo John Wick husband from a 120-pound, 67-year-old woman wielding a one-and-a-half-inch pinky ring knife. Heck, she abandons her children to their fates to find her husband because she suddenly doesn’t think that he can handle what’s coming his way… because reasons.
• It quickly turns out that Colin Hanks, who seems, at first, as though he’s going to be an interesting if cliché character, is supposed to be a doofus sheriff who is in Stone’s employ, and we are treated to multiple scenes of her snarkily running him down. However, he’s neither written nor performed as a doofus, which makes her putdowns seem that much more like egregiously woke “strong and independent” woman nonsense.

Why Not Higher?

• You might be wondering why, based on the above, the Woke-O-Meter score isn’t marked down more. Well, Stone’s character is only in about ten minutes of the film.
• There are several particularly anti-woke moments/themes in the film.
  • Odenkirk’s character is loved by his wife and their children.
  • Odenkirk’s character isn’t some loser dad but the kind of guy who will go scorched earth on anyone who messes with a member of his family.