B-movie review: Is Mechanic Resurrection any good?

When we’re lucky enough to have the apartment to ourselves, one of our favorite pastimes is to get a few beers and to consume them during a random B-movie we have available. How else would you explain our review of Roddy Piper’s Hell Comes to Frogtown? The genre littered with action movies, and if you’re looking for something to watch after a hard week at work, Netflix’s your best choice. At least that’s how we ended up finally watching Jason Statham in Mechanic: Resurrection.

It seems currently Netflix’ action selection is littered with recent DTV output of Bruce Willis & Nicolas Cage, so we felt blessed to find this surprisingly competent action flick on the streaming platform. Of course our hopes weren’t very high, as we only remember the first Mechanic film as being an average remake of the fun original with Charles Bronson.

Luckily no memory of the previous film is required, as this sequel couldn’t give a fuck about plot or how it all ties in with the original. From the first five minutes, in which Statham throws a table at a woman trying to blackmail him, we knew what we were in for.

Make no mistake, Mechanic: Resurrection is aggressively stupid. The best description we found for the movie was “like watching someone else play through Call of Duty“. The very loose plot involves Statham being blackmailed to commit three hits, to ensure the freedom of his love Jessica Alba. That love by the way, Statham only met two days before she got kidnapped.

Luckily everything is in place here to provide a great piece of schlock cinema. Statham is at his most invulnerable, moving from one set piece to the next, Alba shows up as eye candy once again, and only gets bested by Thailand as the main location for this movie. Furthermore, it features a – unfortunately small – cash grab role by one of our favorite slumming actors: Tommy Lee Jones. We feel like the producers only agreed to pay Jones royally for his small role if he agreed to show up sporting a goatee and wearing red-tinted glasses.

The missions Statham – as if anyone cares what his character’s name is – goes on range from watchable to glorious, with the best taking place in a skyscraper. There’s enough gunfire to keep you entertained for an hour and a half, and Statham even gets to have some fun pretending to be a drunk pedophile, in a – successful – attempt to get thrown in jail.

It’s all good fun, containing classic B-movie tropes such as the horribly overqualified character traits attached to a horribly under-qualified actress (in this case Alba being a former operative who just wants to help those poor kids in Cambodia), and having some inventive kills.

If you ever wondered what Mission: Impossible would be like if it was written by a 12-year old and starring Statham, then this movie’s perfect for your Friday.