10 Certified Fresh 2014 Movies That Nobody Saw

3. The Raid 2

In a culture obsessed with sequels, The Raid 2 oddly did only half as well as its predecessor - literally, as The Raid 2 took $2 mil in the US, compared to The Raid's $4 mil, and did just a few thousand pounds better in the UK. This for a sequel that is more souped-up, more innovative, more confident than the original, not to mention bulging full of some of the 21st century cinema's greatest action scenes.

The more convoluted plot of Gareth Evans's follow-up takes cues from the great crime movies - The Godfather, Yojimbo, Infernal Affairs - but borrows little from existing action cinema. Evans rather prefers to forge his own path, pushing martial arts superstar-in-the-making Iko Uwais into a close-quarter fight in a toilet cubicle, a sickeningly violent mass brawl in a mud-filled prison yard, and hand-to-hand combat taking place during a Jakarta car chase.

Though it's not as sleek as The Raid, what The Raid 2 gains in its more operatic form is a sense of boundless creativity. In terms of the action sequences, Evans constantly over-reaches, and still manages to nail everything he sets out to do.