Let’s be honest folks, whenever a new Jason Statham movie comes out the story and the acting are secondary as long as there is good action. Retired contract killer, Arthur Bishop lives in the underbelly of Brazil. Bishop excels at making his kills look like accidents while maintaining his aura as a ghost. An old foe returns to blackmail him into performing three ‘impossible’ contract kills. An African warlord, a shady Australian businessman, and Tommy Lee Jones dressed as Ringo Starr. Bishop must complete all three kills in a timely manner while trying to save his sort-of girlfriend who he met of all of 48 hours ago played by Jessica Alba. Now the first question people are going to ask is “Do I have to watch the first one in order to understand this film?” No, in fact, I doubt anyone who worked on this movie saw the first one either so don’t bother.

Look, I just want to see 90 minutes of bone-crushing action, was that too much to ask? I thought that is what I was going to get in the first 5 minutes as Bishop is cornered by a group of hitmen at a cafe in Rio. The goons tell him that he has to complete their mission ‘or else’. So after quickly turning their faces into grilled hamburger meat, Bishop escapes by jumping hundreds of feet in the air, landing on top of a paraglider and sails away to safety. If the movie had ended right there, I would have given it 5 stars. Unfortunately, the film tries to make you care for people involved and wastes the next 30 minutes on storytelling…urgh. Jessica Alba plays a textbook humanitarian named Gina, who helps poor kids in poor countries against human trafficking and blah…blah…blah. Gina is obviously sent there to set up Bishop but Bishop sees through this right away. Yet somehow they end up falling in love anyway making you think “Well, what was the point of the ruse to begin with?”

The story is bland and does the bare minimum to get you to the action scenes. The problem is there isn’t enough action in this movie. 35 minutes into the film, I’m wondering when the hell the face punching is going to resume. The budget is 40 million dollars but the special effects look cheaper. Some of the effects are so laughably bad it looks like the Sharknado team probably has a production credit somewhere around here. During the dialogue, there are numerous jump cuts where the camera bounces around 20 times during a simple conversation with Bishop and Gina. Also for some reason every villain in this movie has the exact same red phone smartphone they communicate with each other, I guess red Motorola are selling gangbusters on the black market.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that they do a great job with a scene in where Bishop takes out one of his targets with an elaborate high-rise pool sabotage. Everything else about this film is forgettable and painfully cookie cutter. Michelle Yeoh is the only one who gives a shit enough to act. Tommy Lee Jones is in the movie for about 5 minutes and he looks absolutely ridiculous. Mechanic: Resurrection is a glorified 80s B-movie without the cheese and corniness to make it enjoyable.

1/5

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