Equalizer, or random number generator?

Denzel Washington’s first ever sequel…but is it any good?

Yeah, it’s not bad actually.

So I only saw the first Equalizer movie last night for the very first time and I was impressed with it…it was two hours of pretty much Denzel kicking shit out of anyone who has wronged anyone…very much a more up to date, brutal version of the TV show of the same name.

So here we are with the second one, which I saw on a Cineworld Unlimited Preview screening tonight and I’m in two minds about it.

First up, the action is there…but there feels like there’s not enough of it. In the first film, you always felt like you were about twenty seconds from Denzel going postal on someone. But that leads me onto issue number 2 with this film.

There’s too much character development for characters outside our main guy’s central point. In a sense, it very much grounds Robert McCall (Denzel) in the storyline by having him coach a young street kid through life, as well as meeting with other characters he has come across whilst working for Uber…sorry, Lyft.

The early stages of the film show a few “random” moments of Denzel stumbling across situations which need to be “Equalized”, but then you get way too much pace-slowing characterisation in the middle, with plenty of deeper information about McCall’s past in there too.

It’s not a bad film by a long shot but I kinda wanted more John Wick than John Q.

6/10