Reviewing Berandal: The Raid 2

Minor Spoiler about the Ending of The Raid 1 below, you can view my past review here

I tried to make this a The Raid 1 spoiler-free review but unfortunately I can't since the story is a continuation, so anyway Gareth Evans is back with a sequel of the highly acclaimed The Raid, it's called Berandal: The Raid 2, here's the story so far: on the last movie we saw Rama (Iko Uwais) left the villain-infested apartment with his found-corrupt-superior, long story short he's been reassigned to capture the bigger fish of the crime network, this time it was a shady businessman Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo) and a passive aggressive mild-mannered bohemian called Bejo (Alex Abbad), to get through them Rama's gone incognito to get close to Bangun's son: Uco (Arifin Putra) which his bratty tantrum landed in jail, and after that things gone haywire, fight breaks, bodies dropped and blood flows

Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me, because...

They Put A Story on an Action Flix

In the Raid 1 there's almost zero long dialogue, the longest dialogue is probably Tama's explaining how the network works at the end of the movie, however in the Raid 2 there is a story, there's characters, there's long dialogues, and they're so... awful, the dialogues seemed sporadic and disconnected one after another and there's a LOT of unnecessary story scenes and talks which makes my adrenaline have a significant down time, I seriously don't give a crap about all that conspiracy stories, it's a FIGHTING MOVIE, I want to see people brutally mutilate one another again and if I want a drama I'll watch Xenosaga (the FMV version) , you know what makes the Raid 1 so good? it because the story doesn't need a long dialogue, instead they replaced it with....

Not you Al, you're dead in #1

Oh S*it moment 

I called this necessary, in the Raid 1 the first Oh S*it moment is when they encounter a kid in the one of apartment's hallway, this kid is a 'screamer', a living alarm that will alert everyone that there's cops abound, so he ran to tell them, and the cops go after him, what will they do? will they shoot the kid? will they captured him? will there will be another conclusion? even his status as an underage child makes every decision feels wrong, there's only bad and worse end here, what will they do? what will they do? Oh S*it. It's the first scene that get me into The Raid, the do or die, the wrong and horribly wrong case that can blows up everything in their face, also who will forgot those Easterners scene?

DAMMIT AL!!

In the Raid 2 there's nothing, no suspense, we already know Rama (or his incognito persona: Yudha) will gone through every scene until he find those bastards, you see... Iko Uwais mostly going solo in this sequel, so there's no scene risking his friend/companion/random passing people that he wants to protect, maybe that's why...

There's almost no creativity in the fight

A lot of people will kill me for saying this but the first fight scene made me questioning: Is this The Raid? it's so... plain... the second one is a mass fight, something new and it's good, but wait... where's the finishers? the movie's first half fighting scene made me yawn because almost all of it is unfinished and too many OFF SCREEN FINISHING!! fortunately the second half is better, there's at least five distinct fighters in this movie. First is Rama which has fast punch and kicks, Prakoso (Yayan Ruhyan) which has powerful hand to hand attacks, Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle) and Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) a couple who use their respected tools in fights, and the last is The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman) which has similar style with Rama but also using carok (spiked knuckles).

The fighters deliver better that the fight on the first half seems to be just a filler or appetizer for the movie's second half, it's stylish, it's new, but it's NOT satisfying, when every single Raid 1 fight scene has their own unpredictable finisher (which trigger audience's applause at the end of almost every scene) The Raid 2 seems to forgot all about it, the fights on Raid 2 are fatally choreographed and bloodied to the teeth but none (except one) deliver an unpredictable finishing blow, every fights are powerful and efficient but unfortunately not intense enough, I want the finishers to be more unpredictable than the Raid 1, more fatal, bloodier and destructive enough that we'll sure the dead stay dead, I guess it was my really high expectation talking

Endgame

There's one single moment which express my disappointment and disapproval of the movie, but since it will be a spoiler I can't talk about it.  Until this time I can't still pinpoint the good about The Raid 2 because it seems scattered everywhere in the movie, I like some of the drama scene, the camera works are awesome, I like most of the fighting scene, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE FINAL BATTLE SCENE!! But despite everything I rant about above -- I will recommend it to everyone, it's a good movie, but it was nowhere near my expectation, whether I should lower it a bit or this movie needs a Director's Cut edition for people like me =))

Reviewing The Raid: Redemption

The Raid doesn't start with a bang, it started with usual buildup towards the inevitable violence, but when the things started, you can't take your eyes off it, and it continues to rolled over you over and over again like a mean ashpalt roller machine. The plot is quite simple: A squad of SWAT team prepares a Raid on a building owned by a drug lord, it also serves on a hideout for dangerous criminals and terorrists, then fate goes batshit crazy (triggered by n R-rated scene that will probably created the spin-off, The Raid: Lost Generation), long story short the SWAT's raid become a fight for survival, a journey full of carnage and beautiful violence.

 This is the very first picture on google search, the sole reason I posted it

 

What's the good? The Raid has only one strong point: The fights, every single fight scenes in this movie is beautifully executed, unpredictable, and well-choregraphed, whether it's one-one-one, two-on-one, or even a mass fight involving several people at once, the solo fights by Iko Uwais are the highlighted events from the movie, the fights scene will came at you full-powered, it didn't build up, it didn't take long, they're fast fast and straight in your face street fighting with every assortment of lethal tools including the building's concrete walls itself, it's brutal and adrenaline surging, it's not shiny like the Matrix or flowing like Ong Bak, it's goddamned bleak as hell where every wrong enemy moves are exploited and often resulted in quick death or a grotesque scene.

The Lethality level of fight is strengthened by the scene's ambience, like the light, camera positioning, and sounds. My God, the sounds of the fight is uniquely satisfying for my ears, whether it's a knuckle's, a swinging sword, or just a guttural sounds of a severed neck artery and so on. The sounds itself is so connected with the fight, the sound of a knuckle that broke's a rib is different from a knuckle that didn't, you can tell the fight is coming to an end when the punches or kickes become so erratic you won't even blink due the fear you'll lose the next frame. The lighting helps a lot, the camera positioning are good and the CG helps a lot (most of the bloods are animated but didn't feel too phony).

 

 The body count caused by the right guy's moustache is also satisfying

Despite the great fighting scenes, there are also some fight scene that didn't exceed the expectation, the fight on the drugs lab are so lame it didn't get the usual applause from the audience, it feels like a filler and so anticlimactic, the story is predictable and the movie is ended with another anticlimactic event, the actor are decent but none too groundbreaking, Ray Sahetapy provide a good one at the beginning but also too comical. Iko Uwais doesn't speak much but he's just about so-so, Donny Alamsyah is better (too bad he didn't get too much fighting scenes), special credits to Yayan Ruhiyan for his moustache and hair.... err no, it's because his crazy moves strengthen his Mad Dog character, all others are mediocre, but as I said before the story doesn't matter, it's a martial art movie and it live it's hype.

The one thing that noticed by me is the amount of dark humour scattered at this movie, I watched this movie with it's original language and laughed my ass hard when that Eastern Indonesian speaks with his dialect in a scene, no offense but their dialect never quite grew in my ear, I noticed the amount of serious dialogue and the... I don't know... 'funny' dialogues amounted the same, were they intended by the director? Could be, but it helps release the tension after or before the fight, IMO it's probably there in purpose to made the audience didn't fall asleep on the in-between-fight scenes, I personally want to see how's the subtitled version looks like on these scenes, hope it helps them feel the humours.

I recalled his real name is Alfred or something: 

Well Al, believe me, you're my new fave cameo ever

Final Verdict: It's awesome, and I KEEP WANTING MORE, GODDAMIT THIS MOVIE IS TOO SHORT!!! I don't care about the story but how should I? The movie already makes me want to spar with my friends so I guess it's quite influencing, let me gives this beautiful piece of art an 8.8