Nobody 2

Does It Better

Nobody 2
Directed by Timo Tjahjanto
USA 2025
Universal
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Extremely minor spoiler you will see coming anyway.

After the surprise hit of Nobody (reviewed here) it’s no surprise that the ensemble team from the first film... Connie Nielson, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, Colin Salmon and, of course, Bob Odenkirk as lead protagonist Hutch... are back for a second installment in Nobody 2. And, before I go into this... let me assure fans of the first movie that, yes, this one’s also lots of fun and I can’t see the producers not green lighting a third film in the franchise as soon as possible. 

That being said, this one feels a little ‘by the numbers’ in terms of the formula of the first film, for sure. After continuing to work as an ultra sleek hit man, to try and pay off the debt from all the Russian mafia money he burned up in the first movie, Hutch and his family decide to take a vacation and end up in a water park where he and his wife first spent some really good times with the kids. However, it’s not long before arriving that Hutch’s son gets them all in trouble with the local mob boss, who is also dancing on a string to the ruthless Russian mobster, played by Sharon Stone. 

Before long, it’s black comedy and ultra violence all the way in much the same way as the first film in the series did it so well. And that’s possibly one of the problems. The film does its best ot hit all the right moments which audiences loved so much from the first film... but it maybe loses just a little in the process. 

So the cold opening starts off once again with Hutch and a new pet animal held prisoner by the FBI in an interrogation. Then we flash back to how he got there for the rest of the film, starting with the Monday to Sunday montage where, to his credit, he no longer misses putting out the trash for the weekly pick up, this time around. Then, when things get going into full on action, we have the big money burning moment (albeit accidentally this time), a tourist boat fight instead of a bus fight and, also, another sequence where Hutch and his extended family rig a series of traps for the big showdown... this time in the water park. 

The big thing that’s missing is that, in this one, the audience is already in on the joke that this middle aged dude is actually a reluctant killing machine and so, we don’t really have too much of the really powerful drama of the first to pull you back in again. And, since we know he’s very dangerous, there doesn’t quite seem to be the same stakes involved in the story to really hammer that home. 

But, you know, it’s got other things going for it. So while some of the dramatic situations and the various scenes seem quite a bit more contrived, we have a nice moment where an enemy becomes an ally for the big showdown at the end of the movie. Plus, you know, we get to see RZA use a katana against a heavy in a sword fight near the end of the movie. 

And that’s me just about done with Nobody 2 and, yeah, sorry for the short review but I really don’t have many complaints (other than I’ve no idea when those end title snapshots were supposed to have taken place because, not much of a spoiler, the water park is just a hole in the ground by the end of the movie). Fans of the first one should like this one quite a bit and I’m sure I’ll be sitting down for another installment in a few years. Nobody does it better but, Nobody 2 is not a bad follow up, as sequels go.