The hilarious thing about "Equalizer...2" is it's ostensibly a remake of an old also-ran TV series in which Ed Woodward plays low-rent Michael Caine as the synthesis of The Punisher, Dirty Harry, Death Wish Charles Bronson and James Bond and then rinses it all for post-Training Day Denzel Washington. The original series was such an '80s trope (Stewart Copeland playing an Ensoniq VFX! that its resurrection was fundamentally assured in a post-Expendables world. The original Equalizer was basically for people who wanted to Watch Magnum PI or Miami Vice but didn't want to enjoy themselves; Denzel gritty-ass Washington as a respite from Dolph Lundgren is pitch-perfect. I haven't seen either film but from a constructionist point-of-view it's the kind of thing that hurts my insides. There are probably ten thousand original ideas mouldering in assorted Hollywood slushpiles but because nobody can afford to risk their entire future on a new idea what we get is callow retreads like Equalizer. And the Emoji Movie. I hate my job.
Yeah that's probably why I couldn't even recall that I'd seen the first film. As enjoyable as I found it, it wasn't exactly bulging with new ideas, so in my mind it got overshadowed by similar-but-better films like Taken and Man on Fire. Hollywood seems more risk-averse than ever these days.