The Equalizer 2? More Like The Less-Thanizer

The Equalizer 2 (2018)

The Equalizer 2 is essentially half of The Equalizer. Denzel’s first run as Robert McCall was an interesting thrill ride with great and innovative action and a small, but personal story. The sequel, unfortunately, is a boring, drawn out political action thriller with no surprises and paint by numbers action sequences. The fight scenes were fine, but they weren’t anything special. There are several subplots, all of which serve the purpose of humanizing the lead, but the movie would have been just as emotionally impactful with the troubled youth subplot and dropping the old man and author friend subplots. The Equalizer 2 also suffers from predictive casting. Anybody who knows actors will recognize the typecast roles, which ruin any semblance of a twist this movie has. Beyond the obvious political thriller tropes, the movies biggest flaw is that there was nearly an hour without any action. It was borderline painful to watch. I was expecting much more with both Fuqua and Washington returning, but The Equalizer 2 was the most disappointing movie so far this year. If you have the urge to go see it, stop yourself and just stay home and watch the hardware store seen from The Equalizer, which is far superior than anything the sequel offers. I give The Equalizer 2 1 out of 5 total Denzel fight scenes in the movie. Seriously. It is two hours and nineteen minutes and there are only 5 times Denzel fights. That drastic change in story style and character is akin to having James Bond drive a Camry and not have sex in the next movie.