The Mechanic returns five years after the events of the first film, in “Mechanic: Resurrection”. After the demise of his partner-turned-enemy Steve McKenna (Ben Foster), Arthur Bishop (Statham), a trained hitman who narrowly escaped from Steve’s murder attempt on him, retires as a contract killer. But when his most formidable foe from childhood, Riah Crain (Sam Hazeldine) kidnaps his newfound love, Gina (Jessica Alba), he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations on the most dangerous killers in the world, and do what he does best: make them look like accidents. Along the way, Bishop receives instructions to complete the next mission, while dodging life-threatening assaults and trying to save the day, in a race against the clock. Along the way, he forges an alliance with the most unlikely of sources. “Mechanic: Resurrection” is directed by Dennis Gansel, and is rated R for brutal violence and adult language throughout.
The production team of “Mechanic: Resurrection” has me scratching my head at the thought of what happened to their forty million dollar budget. Nothing visually or narratively feels remotely on the same level as the 2011 charming original. The film takes place within luxurious islands in the Caribbean, but only half of the movie is shot on actual location. The other half presents some of the very worst CGI backgrounds that you will see, giving the film anything but a big-movie feel. In fact, there are many times in the film where this movie looks like something out of an “NCIS”, and that’s fine for TV, but for a movie with such an immense shooting budget, the finished product deserved much better. This green-screen background feels like the studios weren’t satisfied with some aspects of the finished scenes and demanded reshoots. They probably felt they could save some money by shooting a computer background instead, and as a result you have a visual aspect that doesn’t look good enough to be on a SyFy Channel movie of the week.
The stunt work is still there, with Statham showcasing once again why he is the best action set piece worker going today. Along the way, there is some really good original ideas used to spike the action sequences, and this film definitely knows how to at least succeed at its soul motivation. The overall idea of this famed assassin being given an ultimatum to kill other contract killers definitely is a solid enough idea, but the execution is very poor. At 93 minutes, the movie lacks the kind of time, structure, and overall character motivation that ever left me even remotely interested. One of the great aspects of the original movie is that it builds two equally strong and enjoyable characters at the same time, then turns the audience on its heads by flipping the script on everything that they thought they knew about the duo. This movie would rather skim by without even establishing the effort needed to dazzle its audience. By the time we meet the central antagonist of the movie, there is an hour left in the film. From there, the movie has three different missions for Bishop to complete, and not nearly enough time to make any of this seem possible. They’re all rushed through without even a hint of conflict or adversity for our main character, and I felt myself checking the clock throughout these temporary road bumps that were used as nothing than to waste time for a film that didn’t know how to build its villain.
As Crain, Hazeldine is given very little screen time to ever make him stand out. His motivations and actions are very below average, even for a Statham action film that we feel like we’ve watched a hundred times. At no time do we feel like Crain is in control, disabling any kind of suspense that the audience has for the film. Jessica Alba is completely wasted as a damsel in distress. At first, it looks like there might be something mysterious and different about her character, but the movie would rather give what little reason for Bishop to feel human and relatable. She is reduced to nothing more than eye candy and love interest. Could anyone play this role? Absolutely. But it’s Alba’s acceptance of a role like this that makes me think the offers aren’t coming in by the dozens. Hell, Tommy Lee Jones makes a strange cameo with twenty-five minutes left in the movie, in what can only be described as a desire to play against typecast. None of the big name actors contributions make sense here. Statham doesn’t feel very into this script, but his performance is commendable, considering he is given very little to work with. At , Statham still delivers all of his own stunts, and even though some here are green screen diversions, he still isn’t afraid to put his body on the line to deliver for his audience.
One thing I did want to talk about is a scene that is shown all over the trailer, involving Statham collapsing a rooftop pool that literally hangs off the edge of a building. If you can believe a building like this would ever be approved via permit, then you might be the kind of audience that the movie is reaching for. Despite the fact that this pool is idealistically not possible, the idea of Statham easily hanging on the edge of the building dangling like he’s hanging on a tree branch is ridiculous. He’s not sweating, not grunting, not even concerned remotely about hanging so high with one hand. This five minute scene is a great metaphor for the entire film, and that is the most logical of all the action sequences.
“Mechanic: Resurrection” is a big-screen sequel with a small screen production. It’s an uninspired, underdeveloped mess that never warrants its existence. Statham still has it, and there are some high stakes action sequences, but the film’s lack of compelling characters and cheap background visuals make this movie feel like a straining exercise in trying to logically establish that this has anything to do with the 2011 original.
3/10