{"id":50404,"date":"2025-04-25T21:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T21:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/50404\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T21:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T21:31:09","slug":"accountant-2-the-reelviews-movie-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/50404\/","title":{"rendered":"Accountant 2, The | Reelviews Movie Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Accountant<\/p>\n

Expectations can be an unfortunate thing. Over the years, my
\nfondness for Ben Affleck\u2019s 2016 thriller, The Accountant<\/a>, has not waned
\nso, when I learned that the character was returning for another outing after a
\nnine-year gap, I was hopeful. Alas, even the calculated reunion of the original
\nband \u2013 director Gavin O\u2019Connor, screenwriter Bill Dubuque, and actors Affleck,
\nJon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, and J.K. Simmons \u2013 isn\u2019t enough to craft
\na worthy follow-up. The problem is evident from the early-going. The movie
\nworks when focused on character interaction and buddy-movie tropes, but the
\naction elements are perfunctory at best and boring at worst. Bill Dubuque\u2019s
\nscript is never able to balance out the ledger.<\/p>\n

The movie gets off to a rousing start, featuring a clandestine
\nnightclub encounter between retired FinCEN chief-turned-P.I. Raymond King (J.K.
\nSimmons) and assassin Anais (Daniella Pineda). He has something to tell her
\nbut, beyond giving her a photograph, he doesn\u2019t get very far. A lot of men with
\nguns are coming for him (or her, or both of them). There\u2019s a fight, a chase,
\nand a death, and soon King\u2019s former assistant, Treasury Agent Marybeth Medina (Addai-Robinson),
\nis on the job. The one clue she has takes her into the orbit of someone she found
\ndistasteful when she researched him back in The Accountant: Christian
\nWolff, The Accountant. Their reluctant partnership is oil-and-water but
\nChristian\u2019s unorthodox methods (which include torture) achieve results. Things
\nget to be too much for Agent Medina, however, when Christian brings his \u201clittle\u201d
\nbrother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal), into the mix. Together and apart, the siblings
\nand Marybeth unravel the truth about Anais and her connection to the mysterious
\nphotograph. If only the solution proved to be as interesting as the mystery.<\/p>\n

The thriller aspects of The Accountant 2 lack depth
\nand cohesion. The villains are poorly drawn and the through-line of the
\nnarrative doesn\u2019t have the necessary heft (even a popcorn flick requires
\nsufficient emotional stakes to get the viewer to care). The ending is
\nscattershot and anticlimactic, with some really dumb elements involving a
\nschool bus. Ultimately, there\u2019s a \u201cIs that all there is?\u201d vibe to the entire endeavor.
\nThe story doesn\u2019t justify a two-hour movie. <\/p>\n

The hangout stuff almost makes it worthwhile, however. The
\nchemistry between Affleck\u2019s autistic savant and Bernthal\u2019s brawny Braxton is top-notch
\nand there are some great standalone scenes between the two that make one forget
\nhow confused the rest of the film is. In one, the two brothers kick back atop
\nChristian\u2019s mobile home and Braxton asks some pointed questions about their
\nrelationship. In another, the two brothers visit a country-western joint with
\nentertaining results. <\/p>\n

Christian remains a fascinating character. There\u2019s a sense
\nthat exploring his personality is of greater interest to the filmmakers (and Affleck)
\nthan telling a compelling story. The absence of Anna Kendrick (or a
\nreplacement) creates a void. Aside from an amusing early scene in which Christian
\nattends a speed-dating event and a brief flirtation on the dance floor of the
\ncountry-western bar, sex and romance are ignored. Ironically, in attempting to
\nflesh-out Christian, The Accountant 2 makes him more one-dimensional. <\/p>\n

When it arrived in theaters nearly a decade ago, I called The
\nAccountant a \u201csuperhero movie.\u201d This time around, it feels more like one of
\nthe Rambo-type sequels in which the \u201cgood guys\u201d go up against impossible odds
\nand use big guns and bigger cojones to bulldoze their way through an army of \u201cbad
\nguys.\u201d As well-orchestrated as the opening sequence is, the action is mostly
\nunderwhelming \u2013 devoid of tension and often surprisingly poorly presented. The
\nrushed ending gives the movie an incomplete feel.<\/p>\n

Would I like to see another Accountant movie? Only if
\nthere\u2019s a script worthy of the character, because that\u2019s the problem with this
\none. When you have someone as inherently interesting as Christian, he needs to
\nhave an arc that makes use of his talents in a way that engages the audience.
\nThat happened in The Accountant but this is a huge step backward. The
\ngains fail to outweigh the losses.<\/p>\n

\t \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tAccountant 2, The (United States, 2025)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expectations can be an unfortunate thing. Over the years, my fondness for Ben Affleck\u2019s 2016 thriller, The Accountant,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,9472,15370,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-50404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movie","10":"tag-movie-reviews","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114400741507499204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}