If you ever wanted to make the case for 80’s action movies still being alive and well in this day and age, you just have to look at Jason Statham, with most his back catalogue bringing to mind trashy action classics like Cobra or Commando, fun and mindless fare that won’t fail to entertain. Which brings us to Mechanic: Resurrection, the sequel to the 2011 remake of Charles Bronson’s 1972 action thriller of the same name, which again sees the British action star busting heads and dispatching foes in inventive, violent ways.This time round though, the ott action is dialed all the way to eleven in a way that would make Marion Cobretti and John Matrix proud. Need an example? In the first five minutes, Bishop jumps from a cable car high up in the air onto a passing hang glider. Unfortunately, despite some flashes of insane genius from director Dennis Gansel like that, Mechanic: Resurrection is just a generic action thriller that is more concerned with ticking boxes than delivering something entertaining.
The story (or what passes for a story in this movie) goes that Bishop has retired from his life of killing people by making their deaths look like accidents, and is living a peaceful life in the South Pacific. As you might have guessed, the retirement doesn’t last long, and he is forced by villain Riah Crain (Sam Hazeldine) to pull off three daring assassination on targets dotted across the globe, with the safety of Gina (Jessica Alba), the love of his life, on the line. The narrative is really just there to string the action scenes along, and thinking too hard on it will just make your brain hurt. Like, how is Gina Bishop’s one true love if they’ve only known each other for a day? How is Bishop hopping all over the world in a relatively short space of time, and Crain is always one step behind him in his massive yacht? And why is it that Gina is an ex-soldier and does nothing more than be the usual damsel in distress?
The dumb, underwritten story could be forgiven if the set pieces were up to snuff, but despite two stand out action scenes, including the 72 storey high swimming pool related death that is all over the trailers and posters, they’re just generic filler designed to just kill time before the next location change where they do it all over again. There’s no sense of fun here, and the entire movie just seems to be counting down till the end credits. The actors don’t help matters much either. Statham can do this role in his sleep, which is a good thing because he is sleep walking his way through this. Missing is the usual Staham charm that make his other action roles so much fun, and Bishop is now just a lifeless pile of grunts and a seemingly endless supply of guns. Hazeldine is a boring, underutilized villain that just sorts of sits there, mistaking staring intently for menacing. He’s there because the movie needs a bad guy, just as Gina only exists because the movie needs a love interest. The most distressing cast member though is Tommy Lee Jones, whose third act extended cameo is clearly there to inject some star power into proceedings but boils down to Jones wanting to collect a paycheque and wear silk pyjamas.
Despite some set pieces that tower above the rest of the generic action on offer here, Mechanic: Resurrection is the worst kind of action movie: formulaic, dull, and ultimately a waste of time.
The story (or what passes for a story in this movie) goes that Bishop has retired from his life of killing people by making their deaths look like accidents, and is living a peaceful life in the South Pacific. As you might have guessed, the retirement doesn’t last long, and he is forced by villain Riah Crain (Sam Hazeldine) to pull off three daring assassination on targets dotted across the globe, with the safety of Gina (Jessica Alba), the love of his life, on the line. The narrative is really just there to string the action scenes along, and thinking too hard on it will just make your brain hurt. Like, how is Gina Bishop’s one true love if they’ve only known each other for a day? How is Bishop hopping all over the world in a relatively short space of time, and Crain is always one step behind him in his massive yacht? And why is it that Gina is an ex-soldier and does nothing more than be the usual damsel in distress?
The dumb, underwritten story could be forgiven if the set pieces were up to snuff, but despite two stand out action scenes, including the 72 storey high swimming pool related death that is all over the trailers and posters, they’re just generic filler designed to just kill time before the next location change where they do it all over again. There’s no sense of fun here, and the entire movie just seems to be counting down till the end credits. The actors don’t help matters much either. Statham can do this role in his sleep, which is a good thing because he is sleep walking his way through this. Missing is the usual Staham charm that make his other action roles so much fun, and Bishop is now just a lifeless pile of grunts and a seemingly endless supply of guns. Hazeldine is a boring, underutilized villain that just sorts of sits there, mistaking staring intently for menacing. He’s there because the movie needs a bad guy, just as Gina only exists because the movie needs a love interest. The most distressing cast member though is Tommy Lee Jones, whose third act extended cameo is clearly there to inject some star power into proceedings but boils down to Jones wanting to collect a paycheque and wear silk pyjamas.
Despite some set pieces that tower above the rest of the generic action on offer here, Mechanic: Resurrection is the worst kind of action movie: formulaic, dull, and ultimately a waste of time.
