Had "Nobody 2" been released 20 years ago, it probably would have been made for half of its budget, featured exactly one actor from the first film reprising their role, and been pushed directly to DVD. Everything about the half-baked redux spiritually recalls the heyday of shovelware like "Cruel Intentions 2" or "The Little Mermaid 2," movies that existed not because anyone had exciting ideas for where to take the stories of the OG texts they spawned from, but to crowd the aisles of your local Blockbuster and convince unsuspecting customers who vaguely enjoyed the original to pick it up and waste the rental fee.
This is not to imply "Nobody 2" is desecrating some classic text. The original movie, most notable for being one of the first films to do OK at the box office as cinemas slowly reopened following COVID, was about middle-of-the-road average as an action comedy can get, a warmed-over repeat of various tricks and tropes of the "John Wick" movies, which screenwriter Derek Kolstad created. At the same time, it had some positives worth praising: a charismatic turn from Bob Odenkirk, mainly, but also the general sense that the people making it were enthusiastic enough to put real effort and thought into the finished product. There's really no sense of any particular care or passion in the sequel, which frequently feels like the hurried Wikipedia plot summary of a more fleshed-out film that doesn't actually exist.
At only 89 minutes, "Nobody 2" has a threadbare story (the script is credited to Kolstad and Aaron Rabin), one that lazily rehashes central conflicts from the original without doing much to convincingly flesh out or expand these characters. In the original, Odenkirk's office drone Hutch Mansell was a doting family man who had to get back in touch with his dangerous side from his past as a government assassin in order to save his wife and kids and, more importantly for the narrative, prove his curdled masculinity; a somewhat regressive message, to be sure, but at least moderately satisfying as a power fantasy. "Nobody 2" lazily flips things around: back in the game as a contract assassin to pay off his debts, Hutch is now too distant from his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and kids Brady (Gage Munroe) and Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), working late hours and missing Brady's basketball games, like a murderous version of Robin Williams in "Hook."
So, to save his fraying marriage and relationship with his increasingly distant son, Hutch whisks the family to Plummerville, a small tourist trap hosting the water park that serves as the only vacation destination Hutch and his brother Harry (RZA) ever got to experience during their childhood raised by their FBI agent father David (Christopher Lloyd). It's not long after they arrive, with David in tow, that Hutch discovers why his dad made an exception for this specific place -- it serves as a hub for illegal trade, with a corrupt police force in the pocket of crime lord and bootlegger Lendina (Sharon Stone, whose slicked-back hair and pantsuit visually recalls her much more enjoyable performance in 2004 camp classic "Catwoman").
A (contrived, unconvincing) brush-up between Brady and a town bully quickly gets Hutch on the radar of Lendina's sniveling toadie sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks, whose deliciously smug attitude makes for the movie's only memorable performance), forcing him to bare fists and kick ass to save his family.
The central question of the film, ostensibly, is how Hutch can balance being a father and his career as a killer, and whether his violent tendencies belong anywhere near his children (the overall family vacation premise makes the film, despite its swearing and bloodshed, feel oddly aimed for a younger audience than it actually is). "Nobody 2" doesn't actually have much interest in challenging its protagonist, however, and resolves this tension with the easiest, most conflict-free route possible. It's a decision that's well in line with a script that can't be bothered to depict these characters beyond their most basic descriptions (Becca the nagging wife, Brady the scowling teen), or provide anything more than the most barebones justifications for its action.
Not helping matters is a script that's frustratingly caught in between genres and failing to really deliver at any of them. There's plenty of comedy, but the film never actually delivers a joke that's all that funny, while its attempts at sincerity fall flat from such a thinly told story -- Lendina, ostensibly the main villain, doesn't show up until 30 minutes before the film ends, giving zero time to give the conflict on screen personal or emotional stakes. The action is at at best competent but uninspired, and at worst (such as a sword fight toward the end) choppy and nauseating. Director Timo Tjahjanto, taking over from the first film's Ilya Naishuller, only rarely adds much verve or personality to the proceedings, and otherwise delivers an overlit, ugly film that doesn't take much advantage of its theme park location, aside from a hall of mirrors scene that pays mediocre homage to the iconic climax of "The Lady from Shanghai."
The main draw of the original "Nobody" was Odenkirk, a beloved character actor who can turn a two-hour late entrance into a prestige literary adaptation into a crowd-pleasing applause moment. There was novelty to seeing Saul Goodman as a grizzled action dad, and he proved deft at merging both sides of the quietly intense Hutch into a coherent whole. In the sequel though, Odenkirk seems decidedly checked out: he, along with almost every other actor in the cast, approaches the material with a complete lack of energy, which can pass for an acting choice to represent Hutch's exhaustion but slowly begins to resemble a boredom with this character.
"Nobody 2'' isn't the only thriller Odenkirk is starring in this year: At the Toronto International Film Festival, he'll be appearing in the crime film "Normal," which also features a script from Kolstad. Whether it's good or bad, at least expect it to feel like a real movie, a low bar "Nobody 2" frequently proves incapable of reaching.
Universal Pictures will release "Nobody 2" in theaters on Friday, August 15.