Nobody 2

• Directed by Timo Tjahjanto
• August 15, 2025 (US)

A former government assassin taking his family on vacation runs afoul of some very bad people running a criminal enterprise in a small tourist town.

Sequels are always a gamble. Sometimes you get great ones (or at least good ones) but these days all too often you get ones that feel like poor imitations of the first one missing what made the original watchable. Mercifully Nobody 2 does not fall into that trap. It is fair to say it is not as good as the original, but sequels rarely are. It is entertaining with action oriented and humorous and jokes in a story that expands the mythos begun in the first one. 

I was a little nervous in the opening moments of this movie. Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) was settling back into his life and looking quite miserable. It just seemed like it’s going to be less of a fun movie. Concerns were quickly allayed when the film began a flashback of a previous mission.

Many movies have been built around a vacation that went wrong. Nobody 2 is no different there. Here Hutch feels a distance growing between him and his family so he decides to take them all to Plummerville, Wisconsin where he went once when he was young. Hutch is a loving husband and father trying to do right by his family and that is what sells the story. Not just the action or the villains but the identifiable element of a man doing his best as a husband and father while trying to recapture the magic of a memory to fix his present problems.

This movie would not have worked without some kind of emotional core. Hutch realizes he has an anger management problem and there’s a chance that he wants to work on that. He’s also trying to stay close with his family and make things better because he knows what he’s doing is creating problems but those actions are to keep his family safe. Who cannot identify with a father just trying to protect those that he loves? There is even the idea that childhood memories are better than they actually were. That vacation may have been awesome for you as a kid but as an adult, it just doesn’t hold that same magic and you can’t relive the past. 

Bob Odenkirk is a surprisingly excellent action star. There is nothing too special about his general appearance. You could meet multiple guys that look like him on any given day of the week. What makes him work is that Odenkirk as a performer is convincing as a fighter handing out death and destruction.

The cast of characters and their accompanying actors return. That includes his brother Harry (RZA) and dad David (Christopher Lloyd) who are a little different in this one. Harry feels a little more involved in the action while David takes a step back to move towards being a goofy grandpa.

As much action as there is seen, there is plenty implied with fleeing characters and an assortment of sounds to give you an idea of what’s going on but nothing concrete to show you what’s going on. This would not work in a serious actioner but in a comedic one it is ideal. Not only is it funny but your mind does so much work for the people making the movie that they could never do as well. You hear the gunshots and explosions and the punching noises and see people run and your mind is working up all this stuff while nothing is really making it to screen. It is funny and better than any fight choreographer/director could come up with.

Problems occur because after a bad time in an arcade Hutch hands out a punishment to a guard that smacked the back of his daughter’s head. This might be the only action movie you see a guy get hit with a claw from a claw machine. Things are settled with understanding father Wyatt Martin (John Ortiz) who also happens to be the town boss. Unfortunately Sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks) cannot let it go and brings out the complete animal in Hutch. From there, things spiral out of control before we get to the real head of everything-Lendina played by Sharon Stone.

Stone is a great villainess. She’s having fun, but I felt at the end of the day she just didn’t get enough of her being crazy. I don’t know what else her character could’ve done but I would’ve liked to have at least seen her gleefully spraying bullets from a machine gun.

In the first film, I was left with a serious impression that Hutch’s wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) was completely clueless about what he did. Yet here there is a line where she says she knew exactly who he was when they first met because he was covered in blood. There is also a scene with a clear implication in dialogue that at least when things start getting serious that she may have a secret past of her own. That makes her being irritated by Hutch’s work to pay back the Russian obshchak confusing. Does she understand his world or not?

Which brings me to something else: Where was it determined that he had to pay up? I don’t recall that being part of the climax of Nobody, but it has been a little bit since I’ve last watched that movie.

Tom Hanks may never have played a villain or even have it in him to do so but his son Colin certainly does. He’s just a general douchebag stuck on himself and his own perceived power. He gets a little too big for his britches once he gets a little authority and pays the price. Just a great a-hole that you love to hate.

Some special effects I am sure were done with computers, but the blood effects are all practical which is one of the things that makes any action movie good or at least better than others. CGI can help certainly tell a good story, but there is something more satisfying watching blood squibs pop and real explosions. Your brain just knows.

I can’t find anything terrible about this. It is still an original take on the action film. Maybe not as great as the first but it’s still very good. It’s entertaining and funny and there is emotional substance. Hutch is as much an everyman as he is an unstoppable killing machine. The couple has their issues, but they are not irreconcilably estranged. It sets up some threads for future films but nothing that leaves you hanging if this is it.

I found Nobody 2 to be a great action treat. It entertained me almost as much as the original did. It captures much is that same energy and is one of those movies I could watch again and again.