I feel like studios get Jason Statham to sign contracts for movies that don't exist yet. They get him to say he'll do an action movie for them, they pay him a decent amount of money, then they find someone on the cheap to write a script with the description: Jason Statham (and nothing else). This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially to me. He's one of my go-to action guys whose movies I make sure not to miss. These movies don't have to be good movies (and most of the time they're not), they just have to have an essential amount of Jason Statham killing people. However, one could see how this set-up might not work because most of the time the movies are lazy, regurgitated from other good movies, and slapped together quickly without focusing on character, plot, and especially reason. And even though I had a great time watching Mechanic: Resurrection and loved all of it, I can objectively say that it is not a good movie.
So, you guys remember The Mechanic right? No? Well, you knew this was the sequel to that movie, though, right? No? Okay. Let's start there. Mechanic: Resurrection is a sequel to a 2011 Statham movie. He plays a hit man for hire whose specialty is making the hits look like accidents. You know... he FIXES things. So, five years later, and an entire country of people who have forgotten the original exits and a 0% of the population who desired a sequel. Statham plays Bishop, the hit man who faked his death at the end of the first movie, living off the grid disguised as a man named Otto (get it? Otto Mechanic??????). He's found by a dude he used to be orphans with (don't ask) and forced to perform three assassinations (that must look like accidents) or they'll kill Bishop's love interest (Jessica Alba), a woman he's known for like four days and now loves because she looks good in a bikini and, I guess, because she's a sympathetic character-- being that she teaches Cambodian orphans (again, don't ask). So, he plans out these incredibly elaborate kills under time scrutiny (and the timing is all kinds of plot hole-y) and eventually goes after the main villain. Oh, and Tommy Lee Jones pops up looking like Bono for all of three minutes.
The movie is downright stupid. Most action movies, especially ones under the B-movie category are going to have their fair share of plot holes. Mechanic: Resurrection has the most I think I've ever seen. Bishop has 36 hours to fly from Thailand to Australia, find an apartment, rent it, move in, scale the giant skyscraper apartment wall, and plant a bomb underneath a glass pool that extends past the building so that the person swimming in it falls to his death-- and it still looks like an accident. All of the kills are like this. Except the plans are so elaborate and Bishop is so good at his job that he's never discovered (dude escapes a Malaysian prison unscathed) that it makes no sense why he didn't just say screw the three kills and go kill the bad guy that his his girlfriend. This was definitely doable. Or how about the bad guy keeping Jessica Alba around so long? There are so many moments where he should've just walked up to her and shot her in the head because he didn't need her anymore. Most of the movie is this way. Then there are just moments that are downright stupid. What is Bishop's solution to swimming in shark-infested waters? Oh... there's a shark repellent cream he rubs on his body that keeps the sharks away.
Finally, this movie, through probably zero self-awareness at all, employs every single action trope imaginable. But not, like, contemporary action tropes. We're talking of all time. Like, I couldn't tell you how many times we get the point of view of Bishop looking at people or things through a pair of giant binoculars. But, all of that is the draw to me of Statham. Do I wish he was getting better scripts to action movies he could kill people in? Absolutely. But then there would be nothing to laugh at and it might detract from the fun. He was the villain in Fast 7 and he was awesome in it, but it was a better script than most Statham movies and the laughs weren't there (though the fun still was). The draw, to me, of a Statham movie is watching him pound people into jelly, crack a terrible one-liner or two and then do it several times more. Mechanic: Resurrection has these elements, but failed to totally encompass what it means to make a successful Statham movie. There is action... but not as much as anyone going to see the movie desires. There are a lot of kills... but a good chunk of the middle he's killing people to make it look like an accident... kinda takes the fun out. And the biggest failure of all... trying to give Statham a love interest. You don't do that. You take it away from him. His love interest is killed very early on and his one motivation is revenge. THAT is what makes a Statham movie. Not Jessica Alba.
But, Statham fans should rejoice because it is still a fun movie to watch. The action is good. There are some very gnarly kills. There's Statham cracking a one-liner or two. And there's an enjoyable couple of minutes of Tommy Lee Jones (though for the life of me I can't understand why he agreed to be in the movie and what the point of his character actually even was). If you're not a die hard Statham fan at heart-- you're going to think it's a very stupid waste of a movie (if you even remember it still exists only one week after its premiere date). It's a really terrible movie and I loved it.
D+
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