Remember that pretty average action flick from 5 years ago called ‘The Mechanic’? No?Remember when you really wanted to see a sequel to that film? No? Well you’re not alone. But it’s here now and goes by the terrible name of ‘Mechanic: Resurrection’, an action thriller bringing back Jason Statham as Arthur Bishop and now starring Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones. Now really this movie is nothing more than a dumb action film with a very straightforward story that pulls no punches, and it turns out this movie is actually semi-decent when it doesn’t try to be anything more than that. The fast paced Statham action sequences whether they are hand to hand or involving guns were somewhat entertaining when isolated from the rest of the film. There are 3 main sequences in this film that take the form of short little break in assassination films where Arthur Bishop essentially infiltrates heavily fortified bases in order to assassinate his target with ease. These scenes weren’t half bad and were spaced out enough to where i wasn’t bored. Any time spent setting up an actual story though fell very flat, thankfully the majority of this is in the first half of the film.

The movie starts off with a bang, you get a good Jason Statham action sequence that is filmed quite well (as are the rest of the action sequences) and it gets you into the film right away. But then after this scene the film takes a really long time to get going, it sets up what’s been going on with Bishop, introduces our damsel in distress (Jessica Alba), brings in the evil douchebag villain (Sam Hazeldine), and there is a lot of nothing happening for the next 40 minutes of the movie and it seriously drags. But then it does pick up the pace greatly right up until the final moments, you get some heist sequences, some break-in sequences, plenty of fighting and action and it’s all just dumb fun. If you think about it too much you will hate this film, for instance, it took characters in ‘Prison Break’ an entire season to escape out of prison, whereas Statham manages to break in and out of prison in 10 minutes with no dramas. The film knows how unbelievable the whole thing is and it just embraces that making these scenes enjoyable.

Although it isn’t boring, there are additional scenes and sequences in there that are just meh, but it bounces back to action heist sequences quick enough to keep you engaged. You don’t turn to this kind of film for its performances, so performance wise Statham was just being Statham, he’s exactly the same as he is in every action film he stars in so there’s nothing new there. Jessica Alba is in this film and does nothing, is a useless damsel in distress/love interest whose only purpose is to ensure Bishop does what Crain (Hazeldine) tells him to. And by the way, Statham, you met this girl maybe 10 hours ago, save yourself the trouble and just let her die, who even cares…… but then we wouldn’t have a movie. And Crain is just a cliche ‘dangerous and powerful figure’ with endless amounts of henchmen who wants control, literally every action film villain ever. Tommy Lee Jones was even dragged into this film but he isn’t actually half bad, i enjoyed his character as much as you could as he isn’t in here for long.

So really i have to say this film gave me pretty much what i expected but also surprised me by the fact that it wasn’t really that bad of a movie. Like, i was expecting some serious ‘Hitman: Agent 47’ kind of shit but it takes the dopiness and embraces it meaning you can enjoy the stupidity that it occasionally recognises. The first half of the film is some long, dragging bullshit, trying to set up a serious plot and serious stakes that you don’t care about. The story is garbage and i’m not making excuses for that but if you could look past caring about a story you can get through this. It is by no means a good movie, but as something you can throw on and just blindly watch as Statham kicks ass, this works.

4.9/10