Why is Nobody getting a sequel?

Have you seen the trailer for the upcoming Nobody 2? If you aren't one of the 16 million people that already have, here it is.

Let's save our thoughts on it for now, but remember the tone, the jokes, everything you can.

First I want to talk about the prequel, Nobody. Everybody loves it. I've been doing some digging, and it's genuinely hard to find people who hate it.

I remember being excited about it back in 2021. The first time I saw the poster, I got the entire movie. At least, I thought so. In my mind, Nobody was supposed to be an action comedy, where maybe the Bob Odenkirk character would be a loser in some terrible situation.

Maybe it's because the two posters are similar, but what I expected from Nobody was something more like The Art of Self-Defense. If you don't remember it, it's that movie where Jessie Eisenberg learns karate and while he's slowly pulled into some kind of martial arts cult centered around his sensei. The Art of Self-Defense isn't a great movie by any means, but it has a clearly defined sense of humour.

Some time later, I saw the trailer for Nobody, and that's when the movie became a John Wick clone in my mind. The fact that Derek Kolstad wrote both movies only served to further cement the idea.

Finally, I ended up watching it. But even when the lights were dimming, I still had some hope that I would get to see a great action comedy that would utilize Bob Odenkirk's comic potential to the fullest.

By the time I left the theater, I felt absolutely nothing. Nothing about me had changed, except for the fact that I was two hours older. It made me feel absolutely nothing. Sometimes it's better to watch something we hate than something forgettable. So the movie left my mind until last week, when I came across the trailer for Nobody 2.

Let's talk about that bus scene

The one thing everyone remembers about Nobody is the bus scene. Here's a reminder:

I feel like there's no point talking about the character here, on what stage of his character arc he is when he gets on the bus, any of that. This could be the beginning or ending of story and it'd still be amazing. It could be a vignette, unrelated to anything, and it'd still be amazing.

Watch it, you deserve at least seven minutes off. And then think about it the next time you get on the bus. Fantasize about doing that to the people sitting next to you: I do it all the time, I miss my stops thinking about strangling annoying commuters with the stop cord. And that final gag, when Odenkirk uses the plastic straw to perform a tracheotomy, that's perfect.

Yes, 10/10, great action scene. And I get it, I do. I set out to write an article about how Nobody is meh and Nobody 2 is unnecessary, and that bus scene is almost making me change my mind.

That's where the movie ends, as far as I'm concerned. Pull up some Jackie Chan highlights and call it a night. But is it good enough to hold the weight of the entire movie? Enough for a sequel? Because I dare anyone reading this to tell me what else happened in the first movie without looking it up. Apart from the bus scene, I couldn't remember any other scene, any other action sequence, and least of all any gags.

Compare that to John Wick, since both are similar in style and substance. What's the one thing you remember about John Wick? Don't fuck with his dog. Whatever you think of it, it became an instant meme.

The comedy I didn't get

The movie seems self-aware at some points, and it seems oblivious at other times. Like, did it really have to end on a warehouse/factory invasion scene? We've all seen that. Yeah, he's gonna bobby trap everything, level the playing field, pick them off one by one. That's cool, I have no problem with that, but I thought it would be funny. And without humor, it's just a cliche.

Nobody keeps going back and forth between gritty action and comedy, but never commits to either genre. It teases you with Odenkirk’s natural comic timing without delivering, then it moves to straight forward action like a Taken movie. For me at least, the setup practically begged for a weird, offbeat, dark comedy.

My problem with Nobody is that I thought I was watching a comedy, when it's really a mid-life crisis manifesto. It probably works for so many people because it taps into a very specific fantasy: that if you get pushed far enough, you'll get to show you're actually special.

It's all about that hope that there is some dormant potential in you, that deep down, you're somewhat special. That your life can change in an instant because you're just so exceptional, but you just need a little motivation. That kind of message is a nice way to camouflage our mediocrity. And I get it, but I think I'm still too young to actually get it. Or maybe I don't get it because the movie is a manifesto, and life is too short and I wanted to laugh and have fun, instead.

Back to the trailer

Remember the trailer at the start of the article? Probably not, because it was forgettable.

It has 16 million views, and 160 thousand likes. And every single comment is positive. "Bob Odenkirk is the action star we need," "[Quote from the trailer] is hilarious," and "My Grandpa loved the first one, he's dead now." Most of them seem like real people, and they clearly love this film, or at least the idea of a sequel.

If I could poll those 160 thousand people about what they find exciting in the trailer, I think they'd say it's the dark comedy aspect. I mean, the trailer really wants you to know this is more comedy-forward, which should be a good thing.

But the comedy here seems so safe. You can already tell it's going to be some kind of Kevin Hart action comedy humour, "Aw hell nah!" and everything. That seems like a waste.

And they're playing the hits, acoustic version. Instead of fighting a bunch of dudes on a bus, Bob Odenkirk is killing them on a boat. But that's the thing. If the action's great, why stop there? Make the comedy great. Make it weird, you have the dude from Mr. Show.

What's the point of a sequel?

He already won. He already got to live his fantasy, to have comeback, to change his boring life. There's no more fantasy after that, it's only diminishing returns from here.

The thing Nobody 2 isn't grasping is that the fantasy only works when it could happen to you. If the story continues, it's not about having that dormant potential, it's just about a dude that already has that and can turn it on when he needs to. We, as the audience, are not there yet, we're still waiting for something to push us over the edge and reveal our hidden potential.

So, why is it getting a sequel? Because people liked it. Because the bus scene is cool. Because it saved Bob Odenkirk's life and now we're all weirdly invested in it.

By this point, if you don't wanna watch Nobody 2, the bus scene is right there.