Is it a spoiler just to review “Extraction 2” after the ending of its 2020 predecessor? The oldest tricks are the best. When we last saw him, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth aka Thor), whose name summons the ghosts of the Tom Clancy-school of spydom. , took a header into the Ganges, leaving us doubting his chances of survival. Are you kidding me? “Extraction,” which featured some of the most exciting action of any action film of the time, thanks to former stunt coordinator-turned-director Sam Hargrave and screenwriter Joe Russo (“Extraction,” “The Gray Man”), was a smash hit for Netflix and created a character that gave Australian actor Hemsworth a rare and coveted second signature role. Based on the graphic novel “Ciudad” by Ande Parks, “Extraction” was also the international film debut of Indian actor Randeep Hooda as Rake’s adversary. Would Hargrave’s “Extraction 2” provide an adversary as imposing and charismatic?

Not quite, but Georgian gun and drug-smuggler and super-violent cult leader Zurab (Tornike Gogrichiani) comes close. With his heavily-scarred face and blood-flecked right eye, he makes a memorable, if zombie-like impression. After his brother is killed in a prison break, presumably by black ops mercenary Rake, Zurab takes his best fighters to Austria to kill Rake and take back his brother’s wife Ketevan (Tinatin Dalakishvili), angry and confused teen son Sandro (Andro Japaridze) and young daughter Nina (Miriam and Marta (Kovziashvili). Ketevan is terrified of Zurab for good reason. He’s a psycho. In scenes featuring the dreaded shaky-cam, Rake first busts Ketevan and her children out of a Georgian prison full of “Nagazis” loyal only to Zurab.

Before he could take on the assignment he is given by a mysterious stranger (Idris Elba), Rake has six weeks to get his strength back. He does this at his cabin in the woods by going all Rambo on us, chopping wood, piling up boulders, doing endless pull-ups and push-ups. This is not a special effect. Hemsworth is a genuine, first-rate athlete. He is also adept at shooting all manner of weapons, fighting hand-to-hand in a variety of styles and blowing things up. “Extraction” movies love explosions.

The escape from the prison also takes on the look of a zombie movie with all the Nagazis lining up to take on Hemsworth and him shooting, stabbing, punching and bonking them one after another. Many of the shots are long takes, and you can only admire Hemsworth’s lung power. Wow.

The shaky-cam thankfully settles down for the rest of the film. Rake’s charismatic partners in crime are Nik (Golshifteh Farahani, returning) and Yaz (French-Tunesian actor Adam Bessa, also returning). Careening in armored SUVs, Rake, Nik and Yaz smash into killer motorcyclists, dodge and bash into sedans full of bad guys. Bullets fly. In the film’s arguably wildest action segment, Rake and his team take Ketevan, Sandro and Nina aboard a moving train under attack from helicopters packed full of armed killers. Imagine hordes of pirates boarding a seafaring vessel. A subplot involving the death of Rake’s son gives Hemsworth a chance to display some dramatic cred. Olga Kurylenko returns as Rake’s ex-wife Mia. The screenplay has a couple of weak links. The ending recalls Philip Noyce’s “Patriot Games” (1992). This is what it looks like to be smashed in the head with a (wooden) box full of nails. The blazing shootouts in and on top of Vienna’s DC Towers (designed by French architect Dominique Perrault) are truly something to behold. Holy Nakatomi Plaza.

(“Extraction 2” contains an incredible amount of bloody, gruesome violence and profanity)

Rated R. On Netflix

Grade: B+