Sicario: Day of the Soldado

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.

Once you get over a bit of a slow start, the film proves to be entertaining and engrossing, and it draws attention to the inner, sometimes dirty, machinations of government and the jurisdictional "system". The acting is also pretty much all-around top-notch.

The only thing that I found as a slight negative, is that it really doesn't have any kind of re-watchabilty factor. Once you've seen and enjoyed it, as much as one can enjoy a film of this nature, I don't find that there is any allure to ever watch it again.

Okay, so this doesn't come close to the first movie in the series. But, it comes close enough to being close that it's much more than watchable. It's actually a very good movie. If it was a standalone movie and Sicario never happened, people would more appreciative. Del Toro is his usual badass self. The cartels and U.S. law enforcement are brutal, per the usual. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys fast action.

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.

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.