Movie Review: The Accountant 2

Posted on April 25, 2025 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Charles Kplinski, The Accountant 2 • Leave a comment

The new movie “The Accountant 2” is the sequel to “The Accountant”, released in 2016. Considering how good the original movie was, it is surprising that it has taken nine years to release this sequel. Even more astonishing is how convoluted and insane the screenplay is, looking like it needs about 5 more rewrites, just to make the story coherent. One of the best reviews on Rotten Tomatoes is from critic Charles Koplinski:

“As for the ridiculous nature of the mystery that brings them together, it defies logic, the final solution an insult to the audiences’ intelligence. This situation would be right at home only in the most absurd soap opera. It also doesn’t play fair with the audience, the out-of-left-field answer likely to induce an epidemic of eyerolls“.

How can it be that nine years did not uncover a better idea and screenplay, realizing the potential future money that can come from this franchise, and a very good idea about an extremely high-functioning Autistic man who is a super genius and has impressive martial arts skills?

The good news about this new movie is that there is much more humor with good scenes involving Christian Wolff, played by Ben Affleck, and many more bonding scenes with Christian’s brother Braxton, played by Jon Bernthal. All of the original main characters return for this sequel, including Marybeth Medina, played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson, and Ray King, played by J.K. Simmons, with the exception that Anna Kendrick, who was very good in the original movie, unfortunately does not appear in this sequel.

The ending of this movie was an over-the-top, not believable gun battle scene with Christian and Braxton outnumbered 20-1 in an attempt to rescue about 50 young children from being assassinated, that I thought was largely unnecessary and too disturbing to put into the conclusion of a movie like this.

I mostly agree with the middle-of-the-road Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 76% for a movie that should have clocked in at 95% or higher. I give this movie a marginal recommendation mainly for some of the humor and not for the plot, which was disconnected, hard to follow, and way too convoluted.

Movie Review: Drop

Posted on April 13, 2025 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Brandon Sklenar, Drop, Meghann Fahy • Leave a comment

The new movie “Drop” succeeds in creating a different kind of story, definitely never seen before.

As this movie begins with a flashback, Violet, played by Meghann Fahy is lying on the floor, about to be shot by her ex-husband while her young son looks on. We find out later that Violet’s insane ex-husband is dead and now it is about 3 years later, and Violet is ready to start dating again and has a blind date at a highrise restaurant in downtown Chicago.

With Violet’s sister babysitting her son, Violet arrives at the restaurant and meets her blind date, Henry, played by Brandon Sklenar. At first, the blind date is going smoothly, until Violet starts getting insane and then threatening cell phone messages, followed by videos showing her sister and son in her house. A terrorist is trying to force Violet to kill her blind date, and the constant threats with Violet desperately trying to find help, dominate the rest of this film.

There is an unusual side story with the appearance of an extremely annoying waiter, who makes too many appearances in this film, which I thought was an unnecessary distraction that lessens the story’s overall effectiveness.

There is a surprise and trick ending that I thought was well done, but not really that much of a surprise, with a climax that mostly worked.

The Rotten Tomatoes for Drop are a mostly high 83% and I agree with this rating and do recommend this movie.

Movie Review: The Amateur

Posted on April 12, 2025 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Rachel Brosnahan, Rami Malek, The Amateur • Leave a comment

The new movie “The Amateur” is a good example of a great idea for an action movie with bad execution.

A married couple Heller, played by Rami Malek and Sarah Rachel Brosnahan are separated when Sarah is on a business trip in London. Heller is a computer expert who works for the CIA. After Heller’s wife tragically is killed in a Terrorist attack, he decides to take matters into his own hands, even though he has no skills as a CIA field agent. Heller is trained privately by an x-agent Henderson, played by Laurence Fishburne, who determines that Heller does not have the physical strength, is not a killer and because of this, he should not continue on his quest for justice.

The problem with this film is that there are no connections between scenes, no buildup or explanation as to why something is happening, or why Heller is motivated to do what he is doing. Characters pop in and out of nowhere, and we all wonder how a screenplay this poorly written was greenlighted.

Other characters in this film include a CIA agent named “The Bear” played by Jon Bernthal, with a small and mostly unnecessary role, and Holt McCallany as CIA Director Moore. This film represents another very good opportunity lost because nobody realized that the screenplay needed about five more rewrites and moved into production too soon probably because of budget cuts.

This time around I 100% agree with the very low 61% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and do not recommend this movie.