Ilya Naishuller’s 2021 action flick “Nobody” starred Bob Odenkirk as a boring office wonk named Hutch who has lost all the respect his wife and kid may have ever had for him. He’s a nobody. Of course, the twist is that Hutch has, all this time, been a secret government-employed badass who is highly trained in fighting, firearms, and exciting action violence. He tries not to start fights because he could easily murder any potential attacker. By the end of the film, Hutch will have become involved in a plot of the Russian mafia, forcing him to fight back and kill dozens of people. More importantly, Hutch’s family — and most notably his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen) — will see what a badass he’s been this whole time. 

There is a satiric element to “Nobody” that rings morally irresponsible (but in a delightful way). It clearly serves as a violent power fantasy manifested by a middle-aged man growing into dull complacency. My family hates me? Well, as far as they know, I’m a secret assassin badass who kills criminals and gangsters. One can tell it’s a fantasy because it works. Once Becca learns Hutch contains so much violence in his heart, she comes to respect him again. It’s a bleak fantasy reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence,” but with the wild, exciting edge of watching a comedian like Bob Odenkirk committing “John Wick”-levels of mayhem. One may also recall the pervasive sadness that hung over the first half of “Nobody” like a storm cloud. It’s a movie with some edge.

Timo Tjahjanto’s new sequel, “Nobody 2,” has no edge, no sadness, and no ironic redemption via violence. Instead, it’s a merry (and very bloody) action adventure closer in tone to “National Lampoon’s Vacation” than the previous “Nobody.” It’s a riff on “Road House,” the “Death Wish” sequels, or any other enforcer/vigilante franchise that has wearied of action movies’ usual po-faced earnestness and just wants to get to the fun parts. It’s less meaningful, but it’s a hoot.

If Hutch had to keep his violent past secret in “Nobody,” it’s now a little too much in the open for “Nobody 2.” Becca now knows everything about his assassination skills … and they’re getting in the way of his family life. He is now so busy on death missions that he’s missing out on the sporting events of his son Brady (Gage Munroe), and making Becca feel alone. This is an adorable twist on the formula. Hutch decides to make it up to his family by taking them on a special vacation to a remote water park/carnival that he was fond of as a child. He packs up Becca, Brady, his daughter Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), and his elderly father (Christopher Lloyd) into a van, eager to share the chintzy resort. 

This is no Wally World. This is a rundown midway sporting ancient water slides. There is a sweet, low-rent charm about the place. One of the best moments in the movie comes when Hutch recalls himself as a teen, eating at a local diner with his brother (played by RZA as an adult). It was a time before he was broken and rebuilt by the violence in his life. “Nobody 2” hints occasionally at the legacies we unwittingly hand our kids. 

But those themes aren’t as significant as the violence to come. Thanks to an altercation in a video arcade, Hutch find himself on the wrong side of the resort’s corrupt owner (John Ortiz), and the local dirty cops (represented by Colin Hanks). It turns out, by wild coincidence, that Hutch’s childhood resort is a front for a bootlegging empire. Locals all warn Hutch to leave town, but he decides to stick around and waste creeps. He’ll eventually learn that the illegal operations are being overseen by a cartoonishly evil super-criminal named Lendina played by a gamely overacting Sharon Stone. 

The Sharon Stone character is so broad and silly, she wouldn’t have felt out of place in the 1980s Saturday morning animated series “C.O.P.S.” She wears little blue glasses, carries an absurd little dog, and seemingly has switchblades hidden in her fingernails. When she catches someone cheating at her casinos, she kills them in public, slashing them up in front of a crowd. Then, for good measure, she burns her own casino down. This behavior seems, to me, to be unwise for someone who claims to want discretion for her criminal empire. Also, Lendina is never seen without her personal bodyguards, a pair of hyper-capable assassin women who look like they escaped from “Kill Bill,” or, more accurately, a “Street Fighter” video game. 

Stone isn’t even trying to create a realistic killer, gnashing and chewing scenery and clearly enjoying herself. In the first “Nobody,” Bob Odenkirk was appealing because of the realistic emotional weight he had to throw off of his shoulders in order to get back into a fighting stance. He was an ordinary man who, in a pinch, could become effectively, efficiently violent. In “Nobody 2,” Hutch is invincible, flinging grenades and firing tommy guns with ease. He can be shot in the arm, and healed between edits. 

The lightweight nature of the story, and the Dic Entertainment-ready supervillain merely describe the whimsical illogic of “Nobody 2.” The themes of intergenerational violence aren’t as important to the filmmakers as the fights and the fun. And the action is pretty exciting. There is a fight on a boat between Hutch and a group of corrupt cops, and much is used of harpoons, anchors, and unbreakable fists. Would the person driving the boat hear the fight going on just behind them? Of course they would. But in the world of “Nobody 2,” physics will happily bend itself a little bit to allow Bob Odenkirk show off his impeccable fight training. 

Even small moments of tension are easily released. Early in the film, Brady gets into a fight with another teen. By the end of the movie, those characters will be friends. Hutch’s family is, at one point, in direct danger of some gun-toting baddies, but one doesn’t get the sense that anyone’s in peril. “Nobody 2” isn’t about a family in jeopardy, as it is about a family having a really wild time at the water park.

The most unfortunate element of “Nobody 2” is that, when compared to the dour tone of the first, the sequel feels a little pedestrian. It sports a story that one might have seen in any number of zero-budget schlocky action films at their local video store in the 1980s. It even has the distant whiff of financial necessity, its water park setting feeling, in certain moments, like a clever way for a low-budget filmmaker to cram some production value into their movie. 

The most fortunate element of “Nobody 2,” however, is that it’s an efficient, effective 89 minutes in length, with credits. The mythology isn’t complex, and director Tjahjanto knows that we, the audience, just want to get to the good stuff. And he manages to stage a few effective action numbers that are sure to make anyone giggle. The static shot of the exterior of a factory building while Hutch commits acts of chaos inside is a standout. 

Will “Nobody 2” set hearts aflame? No. If this had been the first “Nobody,” no one would have been clamoring for a sequel. But it is a glorious Saturday matinée, a brisk trifle for the waning days of summer. It’s the kind of movie that you’ll remember better for the friends you saw it with than the movie itself. And that can be one of cinema’s most important functions. 

/Film rating: 6.5 out of 10

“Nobody 2” opens in theaters on August 15, 2025.