Small Details You Missed In Extraction 2

In 2020, "Avengers" star Chris Hemsworth snagged another iconic role when he slipped into the boots of Tyler Rake, the mercenary hero in "Extraction," the Netflix original directed by Sam Hargrave and produced by Joe and Anthony Russo. Full of heart-pounding action, the film takes us on a wild ride through the criminal underworld a half a world away, as Rake goes on a mission to save the son of an infamous drug kingpin. Now, the adrenaline-fueled story continues in 2023 with "Extraction 2." Hargrave is back at the helm and Hemsworth returns for a new rescue mission.

"Extraction 2" picks up the story right where it left off, which is no easy feat considering Tyler Rake is presumed dead. Once he's back on his feet, Rake finds himself drawn back into action on a daring mission with more personal stakes, forcing him to confront the ghosts of his past while squaring off against a ruthless new villain. 

A nonstop roller coaster ride, "Extraction 2" is sure to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. But with so much going on in every scene, there's plenty of details that might go unnoticed on a first viewing. From subtle foreshadowing to sly nods to the first movie, we've scoured the sequel for everything you might have missed.

Many fans were confused when "Extraction 2" was first announced, and directors Anthony and Joe Russo made clear that it would be a sequel, not a prequel. That's because at the end of "Extraction," Tyler Rake is left for dead, and there doesn't seem like there's any way he could survive, no matter what little Ovi sees at the swimming pool. Still, Rake is back, and the beginning of "Extraction 2" recreates the first film's ending and shows us just how he's able to make it out alive. And if you weren't paying close attention, you might have missed the fact that he appears to have been in a coma for several months.

Watch closely during Rake's time in a hospital bed and you'll notice the attending nurse is trimming his beard and clipping his nails while he's in a coma. It's a quick montage, but it's enough to suggest that Rake spent more than a few days, or even weeks, in the hospital close to death. This is supported by the fact that even Yaz feels that Nik should pull the plug and let Rake die in peace. It's unlikely that they'd consider taking their friend off life support if he was in a coma for mere days, but when you realize he's been unconscious for months, their conversation starts to make a lot more sense.

Eventually, Rake recovers and spends several more months recuperating, with Nik noting that it has been nine months since the attack on the bridge.

Big budget, over-the-top, globe-trotting action flicks like "Mission: Impossible" or "John Wick" often film on-location in exotic locales around the world. In the case of the first "Extraction," production took place in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Thailand, Bangladesh, and beyond. But for "Extraction 2," one planned location shoot had to be scrapped when restrictions were put in place due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in late 2021.

Initially, some portions of "Extraction 2" were set to be filmed in Chris Hemsworth's native Australia. But by the middle of 2021, the pandemic was still causing problems down under, which created problems for production on the action sequel. In August of that year, the Sydney Morning Herald (per the Prague Reporter) revealed that the movie would be relocating a portion of the shoot out of Australia following repeated Covid-19-related delays. Ultimately, the film chose to relocate chunks of the production to Prague, where the Russo brothers also shot "The Gray Man."

 Though we're not quite sure which scenes or sequences in the movie changed, in the end, the production was no worse for the change in venue. The action on screen all works seamlessly, while viewers are almost certain to be unaware that any of the film had been altered from its original planned shoot.

Hardened killers, paid assassins, and deadly mercenaries like Tyler Rake and his team often operate with their own moral code. Rake has proven he's more than just a contract killer (sometimes) by helping the young boy Ovi, even when his client is unable to pay for his services. But Rake and his team also show they are a different breed of merc with the cars they drive, though we're not surprised if you missed this little detail. That's because if one looks closely, you'll notice that Nik Khan is behind the wheel of a Volkswagen ID.4 EV.

First introduced in 2020, the ID.4 is a mass-market electric car with an eco-friendly interior and a crossover SUV-sedan normally priced in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. It was also named World Car of the Year in 2021, and was called the "backbone of sustainable, emission-free mobility" by TopSpeed.com. The Volkswagen ID.4 might stand out as somewhat unusual for Nik and Yaz, who normally use only the best, and often most expensive equipment known to those in their line of work; however, it's possible — if not likely — that in ferrying Rake to his isolated cabin, they wanted to be somewhat less conspicuous than usual.

Actor Chris Hemsworth has made a name for himself playing fantastical characters. This includes, of course, his role as Thor — an ancient alien god from another realm — in the MCU. But it also includes his part as the legendary huntsman in "Snow White and the Huntsman," and 23rd century Starfleet officer and Iowan George Kirk in 2009's "Star Trek." But in "Extraction" and its sequel, Hemsworth plays a role at least somewhat closer to home; Tyler Rake is an Australian native, just like Hemsworth. 

In "Extraction 2," we get our first look at what Tyler Rake is like in his personal life, and a glimpse reveals some details he has in common with Chris Hemsworth. While he's recovering in his cabin, Rake can be seen taking in an Australian Football League game, and the one he's enjoying is no random match-up. In fact, it's a game between the Brisbane Lions and the Western Bulldogs. Fans of Hemsworth might know that the actor is an avid supporter of Western. He often posts his love for the team on social media, and in September of 2021, he even posted an over-the-top shirtless reaction to the Bulldog's win over Brisbane ... the same game that Tyler Rake watches in "Extraction 2." 

Tyler Rake does more than just watch football while relaxing and recovering from his injuries. He also spends time ice fishing and playing with his dog. But when Nik and Yaz leave him with a box of his personal effects, he also spends some time reminiscing about his old life. Opening a box of letters, he fishes out some correspondence from his ex-wife Mia, who we never meet in the first film. All we know from that movie is that he once had a child who died very young, and he wasn't there when he passed away. The guilt of that experience has haunted Rake since.

But while the film shows Rake reading a letter from Mia, it doesn't linger on the missive. If the scene is paused, however, the letter can be read in full, and it reveals some important information that becomes clearer later in the film. It opens with Mia admitting to having trouble writing this letter, but acknowledges that she doesn't blame her ex-husband for leaving. More than that, though, Mia tells Rake to move on with his life, and to not bear the guilt of having left them before their son's death. In fact, she says that their son never saw his father as a disappointment, ending the letter with the touching note that "You are his hero, Tyler."

Beyond the letters that Rake unearths from his ex-wife, he also discovers a small USB flash drive amid his box of personal items. Upon plugging it into his laptop, we see that it's full of old home movies of his life prior to becoming a deadly mercenary for hire. The home movies show us Rake's wife for the first time, as well as footage of their young son playing on a beach before his terminal illness. If you remember the first "Extraction" movie, these images may ring a bell.

That's because flashes of imagery from these home movies were shown before in "Extraction," though you'd be forgiven for forgetting them. It's been three years since the first film, and the flashbacks to Tyler Rake's days as a father and husband are lightning quick. Yet, looking closely, they're flashbacks to that same beach outing for the Rake family, with their son running along the surf. This time, however, we're given a bit more, and larger context, too, which comes up later in the film. Though we don't see it in the home movie, their day at the beach was also spent with Rake's sister-in-law and her young son Sandro, who Rake must now fight to protect.

"Extraction" in 2020 gave us very little information on the early days of Tyler Rake. Most of what we knew about this mysterious, enigmatic figure involved how lethal he could be. Clearly, he's an expert marksman, skilled in hand-to-hand combat, a war veteran, and a hired killer — Rake is the deadliest movie hero this side of John Wick. All we learn about his private life from the first movie is that he once had a wife. In "Extraction 2," we finally meet her in the flesh. When she shows up on-screen, she is played by actress Olga Kurylenko.

Viewers who have seen Kurylenko in multiple movies might not recognize her. In "Extraction 2," she has long, flowing hair instead of the shorter cropped cuts she sported in "Quantum of Solace" and "Oblivion." Kurylenko also has a connection to the MCU. The actress played the role of Taskmaster in 2021's "Black Widow," though she has so little dialogue and so few minutes unmasked on screen that you might not have recognized her in that film at all. Thus, like Tessa Thompson and Michael B. Jordan in "Creed," "Extraction 2" gives us a romantic pairing between a Marvel hero and a Marvel villain.

At the beginning of "Extraction 2," Tyler Rake is still in the hospital, unable to walk, and using a wheelchair to get around. Visited by his colleagues Nik and Yaz, Rake is wheeled around the hospital grounds and chides Yaz and Nik about not letting him die in peace. When we see Yaz, though, he's wearing a very fancy silk shirt, and Rake pokes fun at the ostentatious piece of attire. Yaz remarks that he'll get Tyler one just like it, and that's exactly what he does. What Rake doesn't realize — and what many in the audience may not know either — is that the shirt is no ordinary piece of clothing.

When Rake is visited by Idris Elba's shadowy unnamed agent a little later, we discover that Rake has given the shirt to his dog. Elba's character asks if that's a Valentino shirt on the canine, and that's when eagle-eared audiences will realize just how pricey the piece of pup clothing is. Valentino silk shirts can regularly run as high as $1,500 dollars, with some fetching as much as $2,000 dollars. Given the high price these mercenaries charge for their services, with their fee being out of reach even for a powerful drug lord in the first movie, it makes sense that Yaz would settle for nothing less than the finest clothes that money can buy.

"Extraction" was directed by stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave, who clearly put his experience on movies like "Avengers: Endgame" and "Atomic Blonde" to good use. This included filming an astonishing action sequence that used visual trickery and impressive stunt and camera work to create the illusion of an uninterrupted sequence of the titular extraction. In the sequel, though, Hargrave topped himself with an even more impressive action scene that jumps from location to location.

Beginning in a Georgian prison, the sequence kicks off when Tyler's extraction of his sister-in-law, niece, and nephew is noticed by other prisoners. As cell doors open up and dangerous criminals are set loose, Rake must protect the three innocent lives from an emerging prison riot. This includes a vicious fight with a deadly gangster, and a brutal melee in a prison yard where Rake battles both hardened killers and riot police. Eventually, with help from Nik and Yaz, the trio manages to escape the prison, but it's not over yet — the action moves seamlessly into a guns-blazing car chase through a winter forest where they're hounded by heavily armed gunmen on motorcycles before their truck is obliterated and they're cornered in a steel mill. 

Evading their pursuers, Rake gets his family onto a moving train where they come under assault from an attack helicopter, which Rake destroys with a massive M240 machine gun, before the action comes to an end. It's all so well-executed that you might not have noticed that the entire sequence runs an eye-popping 20 minutes.

In "Extraction," Tyler Rake is hired to rescue the kidnapped son of a jailed crime lord, which takes him from Australia to Bangladesh. The sequel, "Extraction 2," gives Rake a new, more personal assignment: rescue his ex-wife's sister and her two young children who are being held in a Georgian prison with her husband, a notorious crime boss and brother to the movie's main villain, Zurab. A brutal tyrant, Zurab is a tragic figure in some ways — he was raised with his younger brother by a dangerous and violent gang leader. 

Throughout the film, Zurab is seen with a hearing aid, and it's during a brief flashback that audiences get a subtle detail about why he needs the device in the first place. While mourning the death of his brother at the hands of Tyler Rake, Zurab remembers how their father would discipline him for not protecting his younger brother. During one violent confrontation after he failed to prevent his little brother from being abused in a schoolyard bullying incident, Zurab is beaten by their father. Look closely, and you'll see a long stream of blood coming from young Zurab's ear, which then cuts directly to his hearing aid back in the present day.

Later in the film, the religious Zurab is told that God took his hearing. But those who caught the detail in the flashback know it was actually his father who did the deed.

For many in Hollywood, getting large tattoos can be a risky move, because they require extensive make-up to cover up on film. Thankfully for star Chris Hemsworth, his character Tyler Rake is just the kind of man who'd be adorned in body ink, of which we see plenty in the "Extraction" films. We got a glimpse at Rake's large back tattoo that depicts a series of Norse runes, which is apparently some fake ink designed for the movie. But in "Extraction 2" we see a series of tattoos on Rake that are much more personal.

The scene in question has Rake cleaning up his wounds after a bone-crunching fight, and he holds out his left arm. On the inside of that forearm, we can see three small figures inscribed, but they don't have any Norse meaning this time around. These are Hemsworth's real tattoos, and they have quite a unique origin. According to the actor in an interview with Men's Health, those three symbols — a pair of uneven geometric star patterns and a strange web-like wheel — were actually designed by his daughter, India, who was up past her bedtime while he and a friend were brainstorming ideas for his next tattoo.

Across two taut adventures, Tyler Rake has used every weapon at his disposal, from small firearms to big machine guns, from knives and axes to a flaming fist. But at the climax of "Extraction 2," when he has a one-on-one showdown with Zurab, Rake reaches for another weapon that fans of Chris Hemsworth will recognize. It happens in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but while facing off with Zurab, Rake loses his gun and is looking for anything he can use as a weapon. What he finds is a hearty hammer that's reminiscent of another weapon the actor has wielded before, albeit in a very different part.

A clear tip of the cap to Hemsworth's role as Thor in the MCU, the hammer that Rake tries to grab bears a strong likeness to Mjolnir, with its block hammer profile and long wooden handle. Unfortunately, Rake lacks Thor's ability to summon the hammer from afar, and Zurab is able to strike him with a makeshift weapon of his own before he can reach it. 

More than just an homage to Thor, however, the scene is also a redux of a similar moment in "Men in Black: International," when Hemsworth's Agent H grabs a similar hammer in the middle of a fight. In that instance though, he is able to grab it and throw it at the enemy much in the same way the Asgardian prince does in the "Thor" movies.