The sequel’s lean into a slightly more “serious” tone is also reflected in the way Fuqua has largely abandoned the Sherlock Holmes-ian gimmick of having McCall piece together scenes in slow motion before tearing his opponents apart. Bigger and badder doesn’t necessarily mean betterīroadly speaking, The Equalizer 2 isn’t any more or less ridiculous than its predecessor - one of the movie’s C-plots involves a painting lost in the Holocaust, and the finale takes place during a hurricane - but the political machinations that McCall gets mixed up in don’t quite mesh with the image of the friendly neighborhood superhero that was established during the first film, and persists in McCall’s interest in his neighbors and Lyft passengers.
The result - while still an entertaining film about Denzel Washington saving the day - is that The Equalizer 2 ultimately suffers from trying to do too much. But The Equalizer 2 expands its scope, with McCall’s preoccupation with caring for the folks in his apartment complex nearly superseded by a larger political conspiracy featuring players from his past life. It’s why the first Equalizer film worked: Though McCall ended up singlehandedly defeating the Russian mob, his reason for doing so was as simple as protecting a single person.
#THE EQUALIZER 2 MOVIE#
The movie is at its best when it embraces the slightly goofy nature of McCall’s vigilantism. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark He’s never referred to as “the Equalizer” by those around him, but he might as well be, given that he’s just a cape away from being a full-fledged superhero. The setup is mostly the same, as McCall works a relatively mundane job during the day (this time he’s a Lyft driver) and then moonlights using his secret fighting skills to dispatch those who would threaten his friends and community. The Equalizer 2, which pairs Washington with director Antoine Fuqua once again, doesn’t quite reach those same heights. The fight is capped off by the familiar “duel in the rain” sequence that features in so many action movies, except this one is improbably, delightfully staged inside the Home Mart warehouse. Denzel Washington, starring as retired CIA black ops operative Robert McCall (though his character’s name is about as important as Liam Neeson’s in Taken, which, to wit, I have forgotten), destroys a crew of gun-toting Russian mobsters in the Home Depot knockoff “Home Mart,” taking them down one by one with all manner of home improvement tools. The grand finale of the first Equalizer movie is one of the most sublimely silly sequences I’ve ever seen.