Shedding his cape and hammer, the Avengers star moves on in new film Extraction. But past attempts have not been super
Chris Hemsworth has a tough mission in the new
Netflix movie Extraction: his world-weary but well-groomed mercenary must rescue the son of an Indian drug baron. He is not explicitly told to shoot as many people in the face as possible in the process, but he throws that in for free. Offscreen, Extraction serves as an even tougher mission for Hemsworth. Think of the
Australian hunk and you probably think “Thor” (possibly followed by “Phwoar!”). He has spent a good decade playing the Marvel god and little else (the less said about Men in Black: International the better). Without the cape and the hammer, will audiences stay interested? Or will they just think: “Why is Thor
shooting everybody in the face now?”
This is a test that many retired superheroes are facing post-Avengers. Film-makers, too. Extraction is very much a Marvel-alumni project. Its producers are Joe and Anthony Russo, directors of the last two Avengers movies (Joe adapted the screenplay, too). The director is Sam Hargrave, formerly a stunt coordinator on Marvel movies. The Russos already tested these waters last November with 21 Bridges, a
police thriller starring Chadwick Boseman, AKA
Black Panther. Boseman isn’t quite so tethered to his alter ego as Hemsworth, and 21 Bridges was a decent movie, but it didn’t find much of an audience in a
box office crowded out by Oscar contenders and blockbusters.