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Usually I'm not one for reboots but this looks quite good. Looks like Denzel is doing a mix of Creasy and Jack Reacher.

Looks shit

only watched the tv show sparingly..


not a denzel fan so most likely i'll pass

Christ, why call it a reboot of something that it clearly isn't?

Just give this film a cliched sh*tty title & let it stand on its own ground.

Never watched the tv show

so trying to compare something won't affect me.

Going by Joblo.com, They gave the movie a 9 out of 10.

smh. Denzel out here saving these hoes.

I'll watch this. I thought Denzel made a decent Creasy, even though the ending was a complete betrayal of the character and the original story. F@cking Hollywood - and don't even get me started on using a freaking midget to play the role of a 230 pound, 6 foot 5 ex-MP. Child is such a sell-out.

Though, admittedly, if Hollywood offered me enough money I suppose I could always salve my conscience with booze and broads. Just hope Cruise doesn't return for the next one.

Yikes, getting a bit side-tracked there. Mini rant over. Like I said, I'll watch this - but probably not on the big screen.

Juz judging from the trailer...this movie is more like a loose remake of Charles Bronson's Death Wish than The Equalizer.

What made the tv series was Edward Woodward...not Denzel.

I enjoyed it quite a bit
7.8/10

It had a rather good scene with a gun. Sadly, unmemorable otherwise.

It was a good movie. Not one of the best films ever, but exactly what the trailer promised.

My review of The Equalizer:


I love Antoine Fuqua. He is IMO the American Luc Besson. He can take any disreputable subject matter and make it interesting as hell. I loved Olympus Has Fallen, Shooter, and Tears of The Sun. Here we have a film that I can best describe as an awesome hard-R violent action breed of The Bourne Series and Burn Notice, with the cherry on top of Denzel Washington.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Like the two aforementioned titles, this film is about an omnicompetent badass, Robert McCall, who lives in a peaceful life of normalcy in Boston until a prostitute he befriends is brutally beaten by her Russian pimps. After he fails to buy her freedom with $9,800, he brutally kills the entire roomful of Russian goons as payback. His vigilantism continues when he intimidates two cops to pay back the money he extorted from his friend's mother, and takes back the ring from a robber who stole it from his dept. store. After the Russian mobsters find out his identity and attempt to kill him, he goes on his own tactical and meticulous rampage taking down their entire Boston operation. This leads to a climax in a dept. store that is somewhat like Die Hard (not that I found this bad) only if the protagonist was a violent mixture of MacGuyver and Rambo. After going to Moscow and taking care of the head boss personally, he begins life helping the helpless as The Equalizer.

Fuqua's direction is excellent in this film and although it may feel tedious at times due to it's length, the story is thoroughly engaging and entertaining, and Washington obviously nails the serene role of McCall.

Compared to other action heroes McCall ranks very high up there. He displays a Bourne/Holmes-like ability to instantly (represented as slo mo) see variables in a situation that will provide a tactical advantage, very meticulous, to a near OCD-level, especially in terms of time calculation, and even counting out the exact amount of multiple giant stacks of hundreds of millions of dollars, nigh-stoppable in CQB, easily breaking bones and necks and having gun-snatching reflexes, his only true physical opponent in the film being a giant Russian who was tanking multiple stab wounds like nothing, skilled in electronics, mechanical engineering, surveillance, interrogation, stealth, explosives (blowing up an oil tanker belonging to Russian mobsters), and as stated above, MacGuyver/Rambo-esque tactical improvisation. He's rather durable, having cauterized a bullet wound at two points in the film and being no worse for the wear, the second point right before he fought the big Russian. He never uses a gun once in the film (although he turns a Russian goons gun on himself at one point), as he is quick enough to disarm/maim/kill his opponents a la Bourne, although given his slo-mo I have no doubt he's a good shot. His intellect combined with his lethality definitely make him one of the deadliest action heroes of the contemporary age.

My only complaint would be it's pacing. The film is very long. That being stated, I can not think of any part I would have wanted to be cut out. I think the problem is that Fuqua relishes quite a bit in the directing at some points, although it's not a hindrance on the film by any means and in fact adds to it's quality.

This film was a great popcorn action flick a la Taken. It was exactly what the trailer promised and based on the sequel, was an excellent origin story for the action hero of the new age.

7.8/10

Marketing campaign and trailers were horrible, actual movie, excellent.

The movie pretty much owned the North American box office

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=55857

It deserves it. Definitely one of the best action films I've seen in a while, and probably the best action film released this year. But then again, Fuqua never disappoints, so I'm not too surprised.

This movie was dope.

It's like they watched "Taken", took everything good about it, and wrapped it up in a neat little bow instead of dragging it out for two additional shit movies.

Reminds me of Deja Vu vu and Miami Nights. Denzel needs to stop making money and start making movies, much like Liam Neeson.

I didn't understand the point in McCall using his stopwatch?

One scene he predicts he can disarm/kill the bad guys in 16 (or pos 19) seconds...he checks his watch after to see that he was off.
Was it suppose to allude that he was getting slow, growing old?

Another scene when the bad guy visits his apartment, McCall times how long it takes him to return to his car...something that leads to nothing at all.

To answer the first question, yes

To answer the second question, he presumed Teddy was going to attempt to fight him and started the clock in preparation, but instead Teddy just left

i thought it had something to do with him being OCD, 'cause he also did the thing where he closed the door over and over again, that, along with the way he would always rearrange stuff... but it was never followed up on.

He did have OCD. He just knows how to use it to his advantage, somewhat like Adrian Monk without the phobias.

Exactly, stopwatch thing was for audience, if anything...McCall used it for measuring his fighting effiency....when he gets the visit from Nicolai, the audience is in suspense when they see him set his watch because you think it's about to go down...but it doesnt.

From my impression he started the stopwatch to see how long it would take Teddy to leave the building & get into his car, not because he was anticipating a fight.

He knew there would be some kind of retaliation for him killing those Russians in the restaurant. He thought Teddy would try and take him immediately, so he was prepping for a fight, but instead Teddy just tried (and failed) to intimidate him.

I think John Wick and The Equalizer are one of the most interesting duets of action films to come out in quite a while. In some ways, they are extremely similar (in that they are about badasses who retired for their wives, both of whom succumbed to illness, but come out of retirement to slaughter the Russian Mob) but yet they are complete and polar opposites. I enjoyed both films on an equal (no pun intended) level because while they are different kinds of action films, they both perfectly succeed in what they set out to do.


The Equalizer is a film that is heavily is built around character development, which is why I liked the character of McCall better than Wick, both in terms of likeability and skill set.I have seen many people compare the Equalizer to a Seagal film, but in all actuality it is a great superhero origin story. McCall is essentially Superman, Batman, and The Punisher combined. He is pretty much what you would get if Jason Bourne decided to become a vigilante. You could also say he is a vastly more skilled version of Jack Reacher.

While John Wick definitely showcases John's combat skills, it shows that John, despite the fear he inspires, is indeed very much vulnerable in combat, as he struggles and sometimes loses fights, gets captured, and needs saving several times. This is not a flaw though, it is because that is the kind of film John Wick is. It is a film primarily dedicated to lengthy action sequences, similar to The Raid, and thus must have a hero who although badass is vulnerable.

As I said before though, The Equalizer is a superhero film. McCall is shown not only to be invincible in combat, but many other fields as well. While John Wick is dedicated to lengthy action and showcasing Wick's combat skills, The Equalizer is dedicated to showing that McCall is omnicompetent, and can handle any conceivable situation, combat or otherwise, similar to The Bourne Supremacy. He almost feels like a divine being sent from the heavens to deliver justice, essentially a CIA version of Denzel's character Eli. This is also where the film differs from Man On Fire. Creasy, while dangerous, is very vulnerable, whereas McCall can kill entire rooms in seconds.

The contrast between Wick and McCall's combat styles are amazing. Whereas Wick's primary weapon were guns, McCall didn't use a gun once in film (besides to shoot Slavi), only using what he can implement from things around him. It feels as though he is so skilled he doesn't even need one. At one point he disarms an opponent and kills them with a book. Given he was trained to snatch them out of people's hand, I don't doubt McCall's gun prowess, but he just never found them necessary. And again, whereas Wick is shown struggling in H2H, McCall easily stomps all encounters besides the superhumanly durable Russian at the end (Tait Fletcher, who coincidentally went on to play one of the Russians killed in the Red Circle by John Wick), and McCall wins that fight despite having a bullet wound from an assault rifle.

While John Wick definitely had better style, The Equalizer had better substance. Both films were wonderfully directed, and while John Wick had the better pacing and score, Equalizer had the better writing and character development and subsequently more badass action hero.

Like I said, they are two different kinds of action movies and both are superlative at what they are. John Wick is about immediate action delivery whereas The Equalizer is about developing a compelling character arc. Both would make for great franchises and a great double feature and I enjoyed them both immensely.

Well said bro

Is anyone here actually old enough to remember the TV series?

My dad saw the Tv Series when he was young. He said Denzel did a better job than Woodward.

Yer dad's a liar.

Yer the liar.

At least I don't smell.


SMELL LIKE A LIAR!!!

I love you

Seriously, I'm just saying the original tv series with Edward Woodward didn't glorify violence. Each episode hard a moral to the story & violence was always the last resort.
Each episode would be a call for help that Woodward would respond to.
Like a distraught mother worried about her soon being bullied/threatened to steal
or sell drugs. The Equaliser would then warn the bad guys to keep away from the kid & when this didn't work, Woodward would then set up some elaborate plan to bust the bad guys in the act. He would only ever result to violence if the bad guys drew their weapons first....

It may sound like a tacky premise but back then when every other TV series relied on the shoot out to determine that good always prevailed evil, The Equaliser was a refreshing change in actually establishing a moral to the tale.
Denzel's version of ultra violence & revenge would've made a better stand alone feature film instead of claiming to be a remake of something that it isn't.

Boo hoo. The Bourne films are practically nothing like the books besides the most basic plot of the first film. Do you think that interferes with my enjoyment?

Not saying it interferes with your enjoyment.
Juz saying Hollywood really marketed this film to a whole new generation too young to remember the series.
The general response I've read from people old enough to have watched the original is simply this....Edward Woodward IS The Equaliser.

Not the response I heard...

Funny thing about opinions eh.

Indeed

What in the phuck????

http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/hollywood-sony-black-actors-racism-problem/

There is lots of unexpected violence that firstly caught me by surprise, but as the film went on it made it all the more exaggerated and enjoyable. Finally the action scenes are all very well staged, even though they don't do anything new they have a great vibe. Most of all the final climactic scene was actually pretty suspenseful and carried on for just the right time.

Antoine Faqua returning to do the sequel.

I really enjoyed the first one. Trailer for the second one looks pretty dope.

HyNJ3UrGk_I

Does the theme music to the TV show appear in the film at all? If not then not really interested.