Denzel Washington was amazing as always, and the action scenes were absolutely outstanding, but this movie lacked a special something. The last act of the movie was very intense, but a lot of the rest was fairly slow and plodding, getting a bit boring in parts. I fear it was a fairly forgetable film.

Gang member: "Who the fuck is this?" Denzel: "I'm your father, your mama just didn't tell you." Brought to you by Lyft! A movie that seems afraid to show its action and violence or they decided to pay the editor more than FX team. A ton of tired tropes that almost work, because it's Denzel, but he seems stripped of his humanity as he's more Robin Hood vigilante here. I don't particularly believe Pascal in his role, but I do believe his motivation is good health insurance. Has one of the best in-car fight scenes in cinema and some convenient items sprinkled to drive the action, but it's mostly forgivable. 11th Denzel for 2024 51/500 movies & tv for 2024

If you’ve always wanted to watch a film that explores what Denzel Washington’s life would be like as a Lyft driver, you’re in luck, because that comprises the bulk of The Equalizer 2’s bloated, 121-minute runtime! But unfortunately it isn’t as fun as it sounds… Few films in recent memory provided more illicit thrills than 2014’s The Equalizer. Seeing Denzel Washington fillet a host of bad guys with corkscrews, garden clippers and even a drill, as the camera zoomed all over the details, was a cinematic experience you never thought you needed, until you saw it! Making his first ever sequel, Denzel Washington re-teams with director Antoine Fuqua, where this time Fuqua’s direction is slick but generally uninspired; the sequences meant to highlight Washington’s character’s nobility fail to generate much of a dramatic spark. The script saves all of it’s slightly better ideas for the climax, when Washington faces down a group of bad guys in a small town that’s been evacuated due to an impending hurricane… In this sequence alone does Fuqua communicate a sense of danger, location, and momentum. Why use a gun to kill a bad guy when you can use a harpoon? Antoine Fuqua soaks his frames in each act of violence as if it were a dish of Palmolive! Once the title character is separated from the absolute moral authority he wielded in the first film, the spell is broken, or at least less enchanting. Let’s face it: without principles, Washington’s Robert McCall is essentially a Jason Voorhees who has traded in his hockey mask for a leather driving cap! My main issue with this film is the lack of focus and direction. The film plays out more like a video game where you have the main plot line to complete, but as a gamer you can get distracted by the amount of side quests and then end up completely forgetting about the main storyline! It wouldn’t be too much of an issue if the actual main storyline was interesting or compelling, but it just isn’t! Regardless, Washington is always a pleasure to watch on the screen. The two-time Oscar winner is able to tap into his own surplus of moral righteousness even when the script is pulling the carpet out from under him!