Jason Statham has secured himself as a full on action star delivering his own brand of badass destruction in every role he steps into. In 2011 he took on the lead role in the remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson film The Mechanic. The film was a gritty throwback action film that worked well, but didn’t seemingly do well enough to warrant a sequel, but clearly it did because Statham is stepping back into the role for Mechanic: Resurrection, but does it offer up more of his unique brand of action or should Bishop have stayed dead?

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Mechanic: Resurrection follows the most dangerous hitman in the world, Arthur Bishop thought he had put his murderous past behind him when his most formidable foe kidnaps the love of his life. Now he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations, and do what he does best, make them look like accidents. This time around alongside Statham the film includes Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones and martial arts icon Michelle Yeoh, but it fails to fully live up to the gritty nature original. Like most sequels they felt the need to go bigger and more international and it made the film lose part of what the first one so great. The story is pretty simple and gives Statham a chance to do more of what makes the character fun and it is cooler getting to see him plan out and execute the “accidental” assassinations. When Statham is in action the film works   great with this time out offering up a lot more fight scenes that are well executed and allows fans to see him do his thing. There are plenty of gun fights as well that work great as well as some more over the top sequences that are new to this series and while silly at times still fun to watch.

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Where the film falls flat is all the film surrounding the action. There is a strange relationship situation between Statham and Alba that just felt forced. There is an entire aspect to this story that just felt like it was missing to make you buy into it. The circumstance that gets them together felt out of place with the bigger story, like it should have been in a different movie. Alba tries to play up the not so damsel in distress role, but every time she fights back it makes no sense why they don’t just kill her or knock her out. The same goes with situations involving Statham. The task is pretty straight forward but here we have another situation of the villain not living up to what he threatening until it is convenient to the story. There is a strange visual to the film as well in some scenes like they were shooting in front of a green screen instead of a real location. It takes you out of the bigger aspect they are trying to create and makes the film look cheap.

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It is always great to see Michelle Yeoh on the big screen, but not getting to see her kick some butt is always disappointing. While it was a bummer to not see her do any fighting I would still rather see her do nothing than not at all. Tommy Lee Jones was fine here, but almost was a waste as he is only in the movie for maybe twenty minutes total. In the end this is a pretty clunky film, but thanks to some bad ass action sequences it will no doubt please the hardcore Statham fans like myself, but others may not be able to stick it out. They leave it open for more chapters and while I would love to see him back in the role if they go this route again I am afraid it will put the nail in this franchises coffin.