It might surprise you to hear the The Equalizer 2 is the first sequel Denzel Washington has been in. In todays’ Hollywood you might think he would have starred in one accidentally. But no. In a roughly 40 year career, he had never acted in a sequel. And after seeing The Equalizer 2, I only wish it had remained that way for a little longer.
First thing’s first, though, Washington is great. But why would you expect anything else? The man is an all-time great. I haven’t even come close to seeing everything he’s been in. But from what I have seen, he’s never once given a bad performance. Bad movies, sure. But Denzel has always been on point. And that makes this even more frustrating. He can elevate any movie he’s in above what it otherwise would be. And still we end up with a movie like this. My Denzel bias certainly helped with the score being even as high as the 67/100 I gave it.
The plot is okay. It’s nothing groundbreaking. It’s the standard revenge/vengeance storyline that has worked well many times over (Denzel’s own Man on Fire being a great example) so there was plenty of hope for this to work. Unfortunately if you’re not going to use an original idea, you better hit all your marks across the rest of the film. And Equalizer 2 wasn’t able to do that.
The most disappointing thing is that there is greatness here. The action scenes are all great. There just aren’t enough of them. And Washington can make any character interesting. All you have to do is surround him with a few other compelling characters and an original plot; or in this case, a unique take on an unoriginal plot. The supporting cast is alright. Melissa Leo is a bright spot, but her time in the movie is limited. Pedro Pascal is serviceable, but they could have gone deeper into his character which overall leaves him lacking.
But more than anything, the pacing of the movie is an absolute mess. It’s very slow to start, setting up Washington’s Robert McCall as the vigilante he has become. And that set up does give us a couple of the better scenes in the movie. But if you saw the first one, you know what he is. You know the bad-ass he is. There was no need to spend so much time setting up something the audience already knew. This made watching the good parts even more frustrating. You go from an awesome, intense fight scene right to a boring, slogging monologuing Denzel. All of this leads to my final thought, the only one I find reasonable. In the world of sequels and franchises, let’s hope this one stops here. Denzel Washington deserves better.
If you want to see how The Equalizer 2 compares to other 2018 movies, be sure to check out my movie rankings.
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