So I have seen the first Mechanic film and I can’t remember it at all. I get it jumbled up with the Transporter franchise, both of which just feature Jason Statham killing a lot of bad guys. It wasn’t a film that lived long in the memory at all, and there was no clamour for a sequel from anyone. Moving on to this sequel, Mechanic Resurrection, and boy should you avoid this film.

I generally quite enjoy Jason Statham films; I think he’s a pretty good lead in action films like Crank or the Expendables. But The Mechanic Resurrection is by far one of his worst films. The story is terrible, feeling more like a video game where a series of scenes are barely held together by an uninteresting through line. There’s a long sequence at the start where they attempt to set up the love story between Bishop (Statham) and Gina (Alba). But even though a substantial period of time is dedicated to this it feels so incredibly forced and just not real. Given that this was just such a boring and slow sequence that the film struggled to regain any interest from there.

If you like Jason Statham then at least you get plenty of Statham playing the same role that he’s been doing for years, and that’s really the only positive I can get out of the film. I don’t think that there’s any other good performance at all. Jessica Alba is particularly culpable as Statham’s love interest. She does get just pushed out for the film for the majority of it, and reduced to a damsel in distress role, and essentially ensuring that the film has no hope of passing the Bechdel test. My favourite performance however was from Tommy Lee Jones, who plays target Max Adams, and is frankly hilarious. I’m not sure how they convinced him to do this, and look as ridiculous as he does, but I’d guess that’s where most of the $40 million budget went, especially when you look at how bad the effects were.

The biggest grievance however was just how bad the action sequences were. There is one great set piece, on the side of a building in Australia, however this was spoiled in the trailer for the film. Every other action sequence was pretty uninspired. When they got in to the action the shaky camera work and quick cutting was just horrendous. The point of it is to make you feel more involved in the action and make it real, however the action in this just always felt so bad, and with horrible effects. I don’t think that director Dennis Gansel has ever directed a big budget film before, and it really shows, he couldn’t handle the action and it really torpedoes any chance of success the film has.

2/10

Honestly this film should really alternatively be titled Mechanic: Boat Destruction as I think that I counted at least 4 different boats getting destroyed in the film…