My Review of 'The Equalizer 2'

Let's start off by letting you all know that I liked the first Equalizer movie. It was a fun movie that had a pretty cool premise. It was about an ex military guy that went into hiding in a low income neighborhood. He took a liking to people in the neighborhood, so whenever anyone messed around with his new friends in the neighborhood, he took vengeance into his own hands. It was fun, and I loved it.

A little while later I hear that they were making The Equalizer 2 movie. This is really weird because I didn't think they could do much with the character. In addition to this, I don't think Denzel Washington ever does sequels. If Denzel is willing to do a sequel, it has to be good, right? So, hook line, and sinker; I'm all for it. I don't think the public actually requested this sequel, but here it is.

So this sequel is still about Denzel Washington's character, Robert McCall. He's still living in a low income neighborhood looking to make new friends in the neighborhood, and trying to make a good example. This time he's a Lyft driver as well. I know it's starting to sound funny already, and it kind of is.

This sequel kind of diverges, and goes back to his old partners in the military. There's a murder that they're trying to solve, and I guess people that get involved in that murder become loose ends that have to be removed. Unlucky for the murderers, they mess around with one of McCall's old friends, and he's not happy about it.

First off I have to say this is a pretty big departure from the first Equalizer. It goes international, and with a grander story. They really didn't need to do this, because they really lost their identity with this direction. Some of the movie becomes pretty convoluted, because of the jumping from international travel to local neighborhood problems. There's a lot of focus on problems with this one. There are a lot of characters, and it seems like the movie wants to focus the audience's attention on each of the characters when some of the characters are really minor.

The focus on all of these characters, and the jumping from story to story kind of bloats this movie. I have to say this movie is really long. It runs at over three hours long! I think it would have been better off as a TV series than one movie. There's too much they want to put into the three hour run time. I had to watch this movie in installments, because it was so long. I don't know how anyone could have sat there in the theater to watch the whole thing.

This movie does have some really nifty action sequences though. They are brutal, and some of them are pretty creative. I really liked the action sequences, and the lead up to the action sequences. It kind of takes me back to the old days when you knew the main character is such a bad ass, and you start worrying about the bad guys because they made the dumb decision to mess with the main character.

Overall, as a movie I would say that it's actually a little too long for my taste. There's a lot that could have been cut, and it could have been focused more. If you want him to stay in the neighborhood and have a self contained movie that's good. If they wanted to do an international grandiose movie that's good too, but don't do them both in one movie. It's way too long. I unfortunately have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. The action sequences are superb, and the lead into these action sequences are great, but as a movie in general it's way too long.