On this Hollywood period of franchises, discovering one to name their very own is a precedence for a lot of film stars. Over 30 years into his profession, Ben Affleck had but to seek out one; he did star as Batman in a number of films, however that function has been interchangeable. He appeared to get a major motion hero function with 2016’s The Accountant, however in some way it’s taken 9 years for The Accountant 2 to return out.
Affleck’s character of Christian Wolff is a high-functioning autistic man whose skills to comb by mounds of information rapidly and effectively are matched solely by his combating expertise. When Ray King (J.Okay. Simmons), a former Treasury agent who had beforehand hunted Christian, is murdered, King’s alternative, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), calls on Christian to assist determine what occurred and monitor down his killer.
The search rapidly finds a number of legal conspiracies, together with a hitman ring, a scheme to abduct migrants, and extra. Naturally, Wolff claims to want assist in the endeavor, so his mercenary brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) quickly joins in on the search. The 2 brothers work collectively to determine the puzzle whereas additionally stopping to have some enjoyable every so often.
Directed by Gavin O’Connor and written by Invoice Dubuque (each coming back from the unique), the movie appears like it’s lacking many connective scenes. It usually begins down one street and appears to be making good progress when it instantly veers into one other storytelling lane with no clarification. This occurs a number of occasions all through the movie, to the purpose that it turns into virtually unattainable to inform what the principle story is meant to be.
Within the first movie, the oddity of getting an autistic math genius additionally being a world-class marksman and fighter in some way made sense. This movie leans rather more into Christian’s bodily expertise, with the autistic facet of issues displaying up in his (principally) impassive demeanor. Whereas that works to a sure diploma, the choppiness of the story undercuts the character traits that Affleck does his finest to impart.
The perfect examples of the messiness of the movie come within the a number of scenes that function nothing greater than comedian reduction, with not even an try at connecting them to the principle plot, similar to it’s. Two of them contain Christian proving himself to be a girls man regardless of his lack of conversational expertise, each of which fall flat as they appear to be making enjoyable of his autism relatively than highlighting optimistic points of it. Every of the comedian scenes is so disparate in tone from the remainder of the movie that they primarily carry the story to a screeching halt.
Affleck is okay within the half, though he’s significantly better when Christian turns towards motion hero mode than when he has to show the character’s autistic traits. Bernthal is nice at being an over-the-top macho man, and he will get to indulge that facet of him all through the movie. Addai-Robinson is disserved by a job that doesn’t give her character any autonomy regardless of her high-powered place.
Affleck’s profession has been probably the most up-and-down ones of any supposed A-list actor, and The Accountant 2 marks one other down second for him. He might have lastly gotten his first sequel for a movie by which he’s the principle character, however don’t anticipate there to be a 3rd installment.
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The Accountant 2 opens in theaters on April 25.
