{"id":12382,"date":"2025-07-07T23:45:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12382"},"modified":"2025-07-07T23:45:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:45:48","slug":"the-equalizer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/07\/07\/the-equalizer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Equalizer 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Equalizer 2 <\/strong>(2018)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (brutal violence throughout, language, some drug content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Antoine Fuqua\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Wenk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harry Gregson-Williams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Oliver Wood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 20, 2018 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jaffrey.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $102.1M (US)\/$190.4M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0It pains me to say that I didn\u2019t much care for The Equalizer 2<\/strong>. I really liked the first one, a super-violent action flick based on the TV series The Equalizer (1985-89). It\u2019s one of the few TV-to-movie adaptations that I think are worthwhile. Sadly, the sequel does not measure up despite the return of two major players for the second round. I\u2019m talking, of course, about director Antoine Fuqua and star Denzel Washington. They\u2019ve actually worked together a few times- Training Day, the first Equalizer and the Magnificent Seven remake. They\u2019ve had a good track record…. until now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Washington plays Robert McCall, a former CIA operative who faked his own death to get out of the game. These days, he\u2019s living in an urban Boston neighborhood making a living as a Lyft driver (it\u2019s like Uber). Every now and then, he accepts a covert assignment from his friend and former colleague Susan (Leo, The Fighter).<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the movie\u2019s opening sequence, McCall rescues a little girl who\u2019s been kidnapped by her Muslim father. He confronts him on a train to Istanbul where he easily dispatches the man\u2019s friends before explaining why it\u2019s in his best interests to let him take the girl back home to her mother. He has other things going on in his life like helping an elderly Holocaust survivor (Bean, Being John Malkovich) get back a valuable painting stolen from his family by the Nazis in WWII. He\u2019s also playing mentor to a young neighbor, Miles (Sanders, Moonlight), by encouraging him to pursue his interest in art instead of joining a gang. He agrees to pay him to repair the damage done to their apartment building by vandals.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The main plot, such as it is, of The Equalizer 2<\/strong> kicks off with the staged murder-suicide of a CIA asset and his wife in Brussels. Susan is brought in to investigate with another operative, York (Pascal, Kingsman: The Golden Circle). She is murdered in her hotel room by assailants acting under the orders of the person behind the initial killings. Not long after, somebody makes an attempt on McCall\u2019s life. He\u2019s determined to find his friend\u2019s killers and exact his own kind of revenge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a critic and lifelong movie lover, I\u2019m fully aware sequels are seldom equals. I was really hoping The Equalizer 2<\/strong> would be an exception. The first one, in which McCall goes up against the Russian Mafia, is an awesome (if a bit overlong) action flick. It was slick, stylish and violent. The fight scenes, during which McCall would time how long it took him to defeat\/kill his opponents, were cool. It was well-written and moved along at a nice clip.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It would have been nice if Fuqua could have repeated his success but The Equalizer 2<\/strong> is hampered by a very poorly written screenplay. The main storyline is uninspired and perfunctory in its telling. I mean, I love a good revenge flick as much as the next guy but this one is just lame. It\u2019s also predictable. It\u2019s extremely easy to pick out the bad guy even though his\/her revelation is treated as a big surprise plot twist. While I won\u2019t reveal the identity of this person, I will ask a question. How suspicious is it that somebody from McCall\u2019s past happens to be around at this time? The whole movie has a disjointed feel; the screenplay by Richard Wenk isn\u2019t so much written as it is patched together.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are pacing issues as well. The Equalizer 2<\/strong> doesn\u2019t just slow down in parts, it grinds to a complete halt with scenes of Denzel\u2019s character staring at computer screens, flying off to talk to somebody or just sitting and thinking. It\u2019s surprisingly quiet for an action movie. And will somebody please explain why (almost) every action movie climax has to be set during a big storm of some kind?<\/p>\n

\u00a0So what does The Equalizer 2<\/strong> have going for it? First, Denzel is totally bad ass in it. That is, when he\u2019s not reading, thinking or looking at computer screens. But even then, he\u2019s still pretty good. Denzel is a good actor, he always has been. Whether it\u2019s a high-end drama (Philadelphia), a gritty action flick (Training Day), a dopey action flick (Virtuosity) or even a silly comedy (Carbon Copy), he consistently gives it his all. The Equalizer 2<\/strong> is the first time he\u2019s ever done a sequel. Am I alone in wishing it had turned out better?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Second, the fight scenes are cool. McCall doesn\u2019t hesitate to use his special set of skills on scores of baddies. People are shot, stabbed, impaled, beaten and blown up, all in graphic detail. Even better, they all deserve it like the yuppie scumbags that dump a young woman into McCall\u2019s car after they\u2019ve drugged and gang-raped her. Unfortunately, there aren\u2019t that many cool scenes like this. Fuqua spends far too much time on not-so-interesting subplots and an underdeveloped revenge plot where the villain\u2019s motives amount to a great big \u201cWHO CARES?\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t set out to trash The Equalizer 2<\/strong>, I really didn\u2019t. Truthfully, it\u2019s not a terrible movie. If taken as a B-movie, it\u2019s not bad. However, considering the level of talent involved it should be better than not bad. It would have benefited greatly from a tighter script and a more thought-out plot. The writing and directing are dishearteningly lazy. I hate to say it but The Equalizer 2<\/strong> is nothing more than a paycheck movie. It\u2019s watchable but you\u2019ll wish you had spent the two hours watching something better.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Equalizer 2 (2018)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (brutal violence throughout, language, some drug content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Antoine Fuqua\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Wenk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harry Gregson-Williams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Oliver Wood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 20, 2018 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jaffrey.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $102.1M […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Equalizer-2-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12382"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12456,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12382\/revisions\/12456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}