The never not-lovable Bob Odenkirk resumes kicking major tuckus in Nobody 2 (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video), the sequel to 2021’s highly entertaining average-guy-goes-HAM sockeroo cult-hit action flick Nobody. Most of the key creative credits are the same the second time around – notably, John Wick writer/creator Derek Kolstad again gets screenplay credit – save for the director, with the gig filled by Indonesian action-movie guy Timo Tjahjanto, helming his first Hollywood feature. I recall enjoying the first Nobody quite a bit, but this generally less-fun sequel has me questioning my own memory, wondering if the OG would hold up on a second watch, a telltale sign that the novelty of lovable funnyguy Odenkirk as an action star may have worn off.
The Gist: You may recall from Nobody Movie Number One that Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) was once stuck in a suburban-family-guy work/dinner/chores/no sex/sleep/work/etc. rut that was upended by a burglary during which he exhibited some major wussdom, resulting in even less sex with his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen). (Can you have less sex than zero sex? It sure feels like you can.) Of course, it would soon be revealed that Hutch was just hiding his secret past as a Wickish assassin spy whatever, which is where we pick up with him in Nobody 2: work/dinner/chores/no sex/sleep/work/etc., but this time, he’s back in the kickassery business – remember the money he burned at the end of the first movie? He has to work off the $30 million debt – and Becca won’t shtoink him because he’s too quick with the punchy-kicky these days. There’s no happy medium between alpha and beta sometimes, is there?
Hutch wants to win back the affection of his family – filled out by teenage son Brady (Gage Munroe) and younger daughter Sammy (Paisley Cadorath) – so he’s like we’re going on vacation!!! like he’s the second coming of Clark Griswold. Everyone piles into the family mini-SUV (do they even make station wagons anymore?) for a road trip to a shitty theme park in Plummerville, Wisconsin. Hutch has fond memories of this dump, as his father (Christopher Lloyd) took him there decades ago. Upon arrival, the wife and kids look like they’re permanently on the verge of wrinkling their noses at everything they see, from the grubby motel shacks to the janky rides and carnival thoroughfare. You know how these places are – there’s been so much ketchup, the most disgusting substance known to humanity, spilled on the property over the eons, the entire place is basically 80 percent ketchup now.
Trouble does not follow Hutch to Plummerville, but you will not be shocked to learn that trouble always finds him like a dog to the reeking pile of skunk turds in the backyard. This podunk burg is absolutely loaded with bullies who target the Mansell kids, and even worse, it’s run by a hierarchy of dickwads: Corrupt sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks) kowtows to corrupt theme park owner Wyatt (John Ortiz) who kowtows to local organized criminal Lendina (Sharon Stone). (Looks like Plummerville’s population is basically 80 percent dickwads. I blame the ketchup.) Turning the other cheek just ain’t gonna happen, but conversely, it opens the can of worms and Hutch finds himself unleashing his rage on scores of smirking f—stains, burly thugs, ninja assassins, drooling yokels, and all that. Violence! It’s what’s for breakfast. And lunch and dinner and brunch and second breakfast, and…
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nobody 2 steals a funhouse-mirror bit from one of the Wicks, the booby-trap slapstick of Home Alone and the base premise of National Lampoon’s Vacation as if on a quest to win a trophy for unoriginality.
Performance Worth Watching: I love Odenkirk, you love Odenkirk, we all love Odenkirk. But if Nobody 3 has to happen, he needs either a stronger screenplay, or to be making cash his great-grandkids can live on.
Memorable Dialogue: Hutch’s boss, The Barber (Colin Salmon), implies a thematic thread that’s never followed up on via this statement to Hutch: “This job is in your nature, and nature always wins. Wherever you go, there you are.”
Sex and Skin: Nyet.
Our Take: Hutch’s oft-repeated mantra on this vacay is, “I’m here with my family, making memories.” And while the Mansells have witnessed-slash-endured-doled out their share of brutality, it likely goes without saying that the level of brutality in which they engage in stupid ol’ Plummerville is surely memorable for them. For us, though? That’s another matter. The beat-’em-up on the bus is the standout sequence for Nobody, because it not only was a big reveal, but an opportunity for Hutch to release a lot of pent-up aggression while director Ilya Naishuller shows off his ability to stage and choreograph a vibrant action set piece. Nobody 2 lacks such a central moment or pivot point. We already know what Hutch is capable of, and that ridiculous displays of cartoonish violence are inevitable, it’s on Tjahjanto to at least match his predecessor’s technical skill and gonzo tone.
Which is a long way of saying that the film isn’t likely to make memories for us, the audience. Nobody was something of a trendsetter, establishing the post-Wick (and post-Death Wish) scenario of the seemingly average guy indulging his long-hidden asswhuppery. Nobody 2 finds itself competing with Novocaine and Love Hurts and the like, and its lack of a driving sense of one-upsmanship leaves it trailing the competition. Tjahjanto employs a vivid primary-color palette and dynamic camera, and leans into the cartoonishness, but it’s going to take significantly more than Stone vamping (and sort of drafting on her godawful campy Catwoman villain) and Odenkirk hammering a bad guy with a whack-a-mole mallet amidst the garish audio-visual noise of an obnoxio-carnival and high-larious ironic needle drops to keep up with the uberviolent Joneses.
Sure, I was amused by the depiction of a run-down carnival that even the Insane Clown Posse might deem too scuzzy, but the only thing about the movie that’s going to stick to the ol’ hippocampus is how you remember watching it but can’t pinpoint anything that really stood out about it. The first Nobody was properly juiced by fantasies about relieving suburban frustration (shout out to my fellow lawnmowing, sink-unclogging dads/husbands out there), but the sequel never finds any subtextual traction thanks to a rickety screenplay slapdashing a barely-a-plot into the margins between shootouts and displays of UFC chopsocky.
The push-pull of escalation-v-deescalation is a core joke for a minute or three, and I briefly pondered how deescalation doesn’t seem to jibe with the human impulse for revenge (a frequent theme of dating back to, again, Death Wish). But that tension dissolves amidst the melee, because Nobody 2 is all too aware that deescalation is not what we want to see happen. Escalation is the game. Call it crass or cynical or an example of the deevolution of the species, but we come for the violence, not to see people do the right thing. Too bad the movie doesn’t do so more memorably.
Our Call: A classic case of diminishing returns. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.