Ten Stars or Less

The Equalizer, easily one of my favorite movies of 2014. The Equalizer sequel will easily be one of the worse movies I’ve seen in 2018. Why Denzel? What on Earth happened for you to consider this movie?? I’m wondering since your Oscar seat mate Meryl Streep released another crappy sequel the very same weekend, that you guys made a $1 bet to see whose movie would get butchered worse at the box office. You my friend will win because when your epic finale is in the middle of a hurricane and you take your fight there, you have written a really bad movie. I even saw Hurricane Heist this year and as crazy silly that was, it was far more enjoyable than The Equalizer part two. In the first film Denzel’s character is a mystery, a silent guardian, someone you would never want to double cross. This assassin had a mission, a purpose, a well thought out plan of attack to help the innocent and right a few wrongs. In this sequel (which terrified me to death, because I knew it wouldn’t live up to the original), we get a worn out tired plot of a rogue agent taking out some close friends of his and he’s on a revenge tour down memory lane. Haven’t we seen this same exact plot played out in a few thousand other movies? Why take such a mysterious character and flood his story with memories and lead him back to a place he’s avoided for years. Sure, the story may come full circle (like Mamma Mia) but what a disappoint. This movie lacked all the intrigue of the first film and if you’ve seen the trailer once or twice, then you have seen ALL action scenes. There won’t be any surprises in this one. If you brought your watch to synchronize it with his endless fight scenes, there is only like three of them so lower your expectations. Even when his character was doing good things, they are not on the same level as before and so lackluster it is just not enough to keep you engaged with the story. The pace is much slower with far more dialogue, which just killed all my excitement for this movie. Sure, my expectations may have been too high or maybe this was just a crappy movie. Only you can decide, whether it in the theater or on Netflix. 2/10