When you find out that a movie is directed by Michael Bay, you know you are in for a high octane action flick with explosions… lots of explosions… And when you are going to see a Ryan Reynolds movie, you know you can expect a special kind of humour – mischievous is one way to describe it maybe. So what do you get when these two work together? An all ‘new kind of action hero’ movie apparently. I guess that is a fair description; unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily make it any good.
A key part of the success of 2015’s Sicario was Emily Blunt’s role, which provided a moral balance to the hard-hitting story. Her character does not return in Sicario: Day of the Soldado; the main reason for this, according the director Stefano Sollima, was that they explicitly did not want this sequel to have a moral compass. Unfortunately, it turns out that is exactly what makes this movie nowhere near as interesting as its predecessor.
The best thing about this movie is the opening scene. We meet Hercule Poirot and his unique personality, and moustache in the middle of avoiding a religious war at Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, and things are off to a great start. The story flows and so does the action, and before we know it, we find ourselves along with Poirot on the Orient Express from Istanbul to London.