Greg, all things being equal, I’d say it’s time to review this next movie.

We’re reintroduced to Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), a retired defense intelligence agency operative who now lives in Massachusetts. He occasionally helps deliver justice on behalf of the poor and less fortunate. He even takes a young kid named Miles (Ashton Sanders) under his wings to help him make better choices in the ‘hood. McCall earns a living in retirement as a Lyft driver. Meanwhile, in Brussels, Belgium, a married couple is brutally murdered by an American and his gang of thugs. They make it look like a murder-suicide.

Greg, Denzel is back again, reprising his role as a geezerly bad-ass good-guy from the original 2014 film. I went back and re-read my review from the first Equalizer and much of what I said then still applies to this installment. Robert McCall is a character we love because of his impeccable morality, and also because a guy his age isn’t supposed to kick ass so effortlessly. In fact, it’s pretty clear that no mere human can do what McCall does. He’s nearly equivalent to Superman. Even when McCall is shot and stabbed, you’d never know it, as he doesn’t register pain nor are any of his skills diminished.

McCall’s near-perfection is a problem in terms of character design. Sure, we want our heroes to be perched on a pedestal, but we know that all good heroes should have at least one prominent vulnerability. McCall appears to have no kryptonite, and thus his character lacks credibility.

The movie has some other flaws, not the least of which is the feeble attempt on McCall’s life orchestrated by his former partner, David. The film tells us that David knows McCall better than anyone, but if that were true David wouldn’t have hired one lone hitman to pose as a Lyft customer in McCall’s car. Clearly, a former friend and partner would know that only a large fleet of nuclear-armed super-behemoths could defeat McCall – and only if the behemoths were lucky. Yet David sends one measly and ineffectual guy after him. That’s just poor screenplay writing.

The Equalizer 2 is a fun action-hero film that works almost entirely on the strength of Denzel Washington’s star-power. There is no doubt that some Hollywood actors can carry a mediocre movie just from their magnetism and charisma. Still, there were a few annoying deficits in this Equalizer that were easily fixable and yet somehow overlooked during screenplay development. We need a hero who has a weakness or two, and we also need smart characters to make smart decisions. I enjoyed the first Equalizer  despite its flaws, and I semi-enjoyed this one, too. I’ll therefore assign it a rating of 3 Reels out of 5.

We perceive McCall to be a strong hero because he taps into an important hero archetype, namely, the archetype of the dangerous and underestimated old guy. Bruce Willis has played this role very well in the RED movie franchise, and perhaps we first saw it in the character of Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid. There are some good elements of the hero’s journey present here, with McCall being “called” on the journey when he picks up the raped woman in his Lyft car. He travels the hero’s journey but never transforms into a better person because he is already perfect to begin with. So while I enjoyed McCall as a hero, his lack of vulnerabilities lowers my rating of him to 3 Hero points out of 5. The archetypes of the bad-ass geezer and traitorous former partner earn 3 Arcs out of 5, too.

Movie: Archetypes: Heroes: