The Raid 2 has been heralded as one of the best action movies of all time. It is a fan favorite at one of my favorite pop culture websites, The Ringer, and after seeing the first, I felt like I had to watch the second. My understanding of this two part series is that the first is excellent, but the second is completely different and phenomenal, which is not incorrect. Much like I talked about with The Road Warrior, it is the best type of sequel because it can stand alone. You don’t have to have any knowledge about the first to enjoy this action packed bat-shit sequel, which sometimes is the best thing. But honestly, at the end of the day, I think the original The Raid is better.
Now, I can see why people love this. There is more of a plot, there’s insane set pieces in a club, the prison yard mud fight, the prison bathroom fight, the car chase, the final raid on the restaurant. All excellent achievements in martial arts, stunt choreography, fight choreography, and action filmmaking. But the problem for me is the bloat.
I think a good comparison is that of Fury Road and Furiosa. Fury Road is one of the best action movies of all time and just generally an excellent film because it is so simple. It goes from point A to point B and then back again. That’s it. Furiosa attempts to fill in so much plot in a very tumultuous timeline and give us so much more character development when, in reality, we just want the paragliders or the attack on the Bullet Farm.
The Raid is Fury Road in this instance. At the beginning we’re told who’s good and who’s bad, then we have a non-stop assault for two hours where they’re just trying to reach the head boss at the top of the building. That’s it. It’s pure and it rocks. The Raid 2 does this whole The Departed thing where the cop from the first one has to go to prison to get cred, then gets out and is muscle for a crime boss and has to bring him down by going undercover. At times it gets convoluted in the story and who’s crossing who, and also like Furiosa, has a bloated runtime of two and half hours (as compared to both Fury Road and The Raid which clock in at about two hours).
Simplicity for films of this magnitude are important, and while both are truly great and some of the sickest shit I’ve ever seen (both in terms of awesome fights and gruesome kills), it’s gotta be the original for me. I think about that RKO door kill everyday since I’ve watched it.