The 'Not-So-Critical' Critic:
on MECHANIC: RESURRECTION (2016, 98 minutes, R)
The Quick of It -
This is an ode to all bad action films. Statham, you disappoint me.
Your parents should be ashamed.
I’m not even saying this because the film is a sequel, not living up to
the original’s hype. I say this because
it was just a disaster from the start.
I am a huge fan of Jason Statham, and have been without
question. He has been apart of some
above-mediocre projects before, but this is by far the worst. I do not understand how he could let this
happen. His stock in Hollywood should
not be this bad!
RESURRECTION continues his Arthur Bishop role, but is put into the
trope of ‘bad guy kidnaps girl to make good guy do what he wants’. Oh, how about we make him realize at the
start that this is a trap? How about we
actually make them fall in love in a day’s time? How about we make her more sympathetic by having her an ex-vet
now schoolteacher at a school with kids who were rescued from human trafficking…
in Cambodia? Ok…
Oh, and the love interest… Jessica Alba. Pleasant on the eyes, so should be a good addition… nope. Do not be fooled thinking any super-hot love
scene is incorporated here to push the bar up to make this worth seeing. Oh, there is a scene… but could have been
put on by some frisky Puritans for all I could tell.
And don’t think Tommy Lee Jones is there to save anything. He is a ‘rock star’ arms dealer, with plenty
of piercings and leather. Looked like a
reject of the Rolling Stones tribute band.
I love the man as an actor but this was ridiculous.
Everything is wrong with the film.
At the start, the outdoor fight scene is clearly indoors and has some
80’s dressed bad girl confronting Bishop with a band of thugs. But the fight sequence was good… so some
hope. Then they put us at his next
hideaway, far from civilization. More
horrible dialogue, terrible story development, and crappy shot placement, sending
me further down the spiral. This looked
like a film student trying to do his best, and failing. Dennis Gansel, a German trained director,
shows that he is still too green for any larger budget projects. The screenplay writers Philip Shelby and
Tony Mosher should hide their heads for a while, until the dust settles and
everyone forgets.
Spoiler examples you ask… sure!
How about the first assassination job, on an African arms dealer who is
being detained on an island prison. Oh,
and sharks in the water, can’t forget the sharks. The guy is about to be killed by a past lieutenant of his. No… Bishop decides to kill the lieutenant
right before the deadly blow, get invited to a private dinner, and then kill
the guy there. Ahh…?
Or, how about the second kill.
He is to kill another arms dealer who has a penthouse in a 70-story building,
with a pool that hangs over the edge.
Cool concept for an accidental kill.
But once completed and Bishop slides into a room a few stories below,
with the window closed, you can hear the guys screaming as he passes the window
and then hit the ground with a splat… from 60-plus stories above… Who knew?
The writing was atrocious, the acting could not save a clip of
celluloid, and the plot holes were too numerous to count… and I’m not watching
again to get an accurate count. As an
added insult to themselves, they knew how bad the holes were, they added scenes
to try and fill some of the problems, making those awkward “oh, that was how it
was done” or “that explains why or how he knew that”. Yes, that bad.
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