Sicario Day Of The Soldado

A worthwhile sequel.

I would go on the record and say it's not as good compared to the first movie but terrible it is not, and does do what any good sequel should. We follow Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro from the last film jumping from cartels to border patrol after several suicide bombers come from Mexico, and a ploy revolving around a cartel leader's daughter becomes the main focus. Which makes sense because these are operatives who would jump from mission to mission with little ties to the last, and while the main returning characters don't get much new, the performances are still strong especially with Benicio who gets to spread his wings more and is a perfect follow up lead because of the mystique about him in the first film. Josh Brolin still undoubtedly is the anti-hero willing to go to any extreme to get the job done and they did attempt to give him more of a moral dilemma near the end which I appreciate. Isabela Moner gets plenty of good screen time as we see her transition from hard edged schoolgirl getting into scuffs to most likely PTSD riddled survivor of numerous shootouts, and I know the trauma is her arc rather than overcoming the trauma itself but it does make me wish we got more from her. This does feel like one of those movies from the actionsploitation genre where it's not as tightly written or has as big a budget but is more made for some revenue and to ever so slightly expand upon the characters from the first film. It's not direct to DVD but more like a limited theatrical release before being swiftly added as the TV movie for the week kind of vibe. It's definitely serviceable, it's not shot bad at all, the action still has a punch, the story is involved and doesn't feel like a writer's obligation, it has good quiet moments, I was engaged to see where it ended, and I'm not even really opposed to a Sicario 3 in the future. I guess it's more a matter of what are you looking for, if you watched the first and didn't get your bullet quota fulfilled you won't find much better here, but if you liked the more dramatic angle of the first movie I think you can walk away from this one happy. Me personally I was happy to watch both even if I probably won't watch it again in the future, still solid and enjoyable but I can bow out with a smile on my face. So 3 stars, 7/10, new movie coming up next time so good times to be had!