Sicario: El día del soldado

This is one of those action movies that it only job is to give you as real as possible experience with its beautiful cinematography. It doesn't feel as real as ''Children of Men'' and it probably won't get a Oscar but it serves its job. The movie may not be as masterful as Villeneuve's original, but it achieves to keep you on the screen. There are really good heart-pumping scenes that beautifully blended with the score in its convoluted plot. Just like in the first movie, the story gets darker and darker. It reflects real-life situations, that's why it's so dreary and compelling. All the events is a buildup to our main story. It all ties together perfectly in the end. And even though key cast member Emily Blunt no longer here, the movie stands alone as a powerful modern-day Western, thanks to the Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, and Taylor Sheridan who also penned the screenplay of the first movie.

I'll definitely watch this again.

Pros: The story was well told.

The characters were engaging.

Benicio Del Toro is a God.

An honest portrayal of a sad reality.

Cons: one character should have remained how he was, that would have been a fitting send off for his character. Is it better than the first Sicario? Yes. Why? No moral compass, it doesn't exist in the real world.

Sequels typically strive to go bigger and badder than the original. This sequel is no exception. This issue with attempting to up the ante is that it often causes sequels to lose sight of what made the original special. Again, this sequel is no exception.

For some reason that I still don't understand, 'Sicario: Day of the Soldado' opens with coverage of Somali pirates, Mexican-United States border crossings, and graphic scenes of ISIS suicide bombers that will leave you unsettled for an uncomfortably long time. Government agents presume that all these terrorist efforts are connected. They're not.

The film's inclusion of these scenes doesn't add layers to the complexity of anti-terrorist or anti-drug efforts (it's unclear if that was ever the intention). Instead, the scenes only serve to offer some of the BANG BANG moments that sequels seem to require.

There's an emptiness, a pointlessness to the violence-that should be the point of the film. "The war on drugs" is a war without an opponent, and the U.S. is fighting an unwinnable fight. The violence only begets greater violence, one immoral acts leads to dozens more like it, and everyone becomes dirty in the end. This film has no heroes.

I wish that's what this movie was about, but it misses the point. It lacks the perspective and awareness of the first 'Sicario' film. The action in this film is well shot and exciting, same as the first film, but all subtle yet crucial details that made the first film excellent are wrong in this one.

The acting saves the movie from failure. Josh Brolin is excellent once again as the smirking tough guy government agent, and Benicio Del Toro is award-worthy as Alejandro, the sicario. Though he has taken frustrating character development leaps since the first film, Del Toro is nonetheless commanding, angry and tactful. Mercifully, he also provides a few drops of humanity into a movie in desperate need of some. Most actors lack the versatility to successfully transition between all these emotions. But this is Benicio Del Toro.

If you're a huge fan of Del Toro, Brolin or this genre of film, consider seeing it in the theater. Otherwise, wait until you can watch it at home.

Not as good the the first one but held my attention throughout. If you can bear the plot holes and just go with it then definitely worth a watch. Benicio as always is great to watch and most of the cast do a great job. I'd recommend it if you enjoyed the first one.

Film starts really well. Gritty, violent, miltaristic. Relevant and exciting. Cool photography and sound. Interesting plot line. Seems like a solid follow-up to the excellent original. Helicopters, machine guns, explosions, mercenaries and black ops. But about halfway through it comes to a screeching halt that it never recovers from, even as there are some scenes that give you hope that the pace will resume.

But the film commits itself to going with a train of events that are not engaging or exciting. It never follows up with what could have been supremely interesting, the cartel war that the planned and executed event was supposed to trigger. Instead it undoes itself with the embarassingly obvious attempt to set that stage for another sequel. We get a lot of wasted time on the way, with story decisons that make no sense, and a convoluted and boring backward human-smuggling idea with political motivations.

The other major annoyance is the young gangster character. He does not act, at all, and his one-expression face alone is extremely unpleasant, not in a menacing way, but punchworthy. Highly ineffective and off-putting. Really bad casting.

First half was great. Second half was a joke.