Jon Bernthal and Ben Affleck in The Accountant 2
THE ACCOUNTANT 2
Despite a gap of nearly nine years between films and the original not being a work I imagined anyone demanding a sequel to, director Gavin O'Connor's action thriller The Accountant 2 scored an opening weekend of nearly $25 million domestic. Still, I have to wonder if the movie would've made a single cent less had it dropped its action-thriller elements entirely and instead gave us two hours of Ben Affleck, as a slightly more personable Rain Man, merely hanging out with Jon Bernthal, who's like the funnier, more homicidal Tom Cruise to Affleck's Dustin Hoffman. Whenever O'Connor's followup is going through the expected genre motions, it's pretty tired stuff. Yet whenever the film embraces its Odd Couple buddy-comedy leanings, which is blessedly often, it's a total hoot. Due to the nature of his role, Affleck is never allowed to laugh here. With Bernthal gleefully egging him on, though, you can sense how deeply the actor must want to. Heaven knows my audience, myself included, was laughing.
Although a 2016 review with my byline indicates that I did actually see O'Connor's predecessor, I walked into The Accountant 2 remembering nothing about that experience beyond Affleck playing an autistic numbers cruncher with a violent streak and Bernthal playing a strutting psycho who, in a thoroughly unsurprising plot twist, turned out to be Ben's baby brother. Give me a few months, and that's all I'll likely remember about the sequel, too – give or take the sight of Affleck country-line-dancing and Bernthal, in black underwear and black socks, anxiously practicing an innocuous phone conversation with a canine-adoption service. Who could blame me? Plenty of violent action flicks, as this one does, toss gunfire, fistfights, unsolved murders, pissed-off federal agents, human traffickers, imperiled children, and even an amnesiac into the mix. How many of them have the temerity to spend five whole minutes with a pair of middle-aged siblings sipping beers on the roof of a mobile home, rekindling childhood memories, and warring over a tube of sunscreen – a completely immaterial, completely delightful sequence in which the only thing being shot is the shit?
Truth be told, I'm not wild about Affleck's interpretation of his autistic savant Christian Wolff. While it's by no means an insulting turn, and easily could've been, the star's clipped, hyper-articulated readings make Wolff sound like the world's least invested prep-school headmaster, and his physicality, especially in his timid little steps, is overly fussy. Honorable or not, this is still very much a “Look at me, Ma!” performance. (Affleck only momentarily slips out of character when unable to contain Wolff's bafflement at someone else's stupidity.) Yet although Bernthal is also showboating to the extreme as the aggrieved blowhard Braxton, his live-wire energy is blissfully enjoyable, even soulful, and in doing his damnedest to loosen Affleck up, they make a lovely, lovable pairing – two adult-size little boys trying to hide from the world their stunted emotional development. By the end of The Accountant 2, I didn't care who killed J.K. Simmons (and ordinarily I would!), or where the missing persons had gone missing, or why Cynthia Addai-Robinson portrayed Wolff's Treasury Department handler as the living embodiment of a bad mood. But I very much wanted Christian to land a date and Braxton to land a pet, and if a few dozen hired-goons-turned-corpses lingered on the sidelines, so be it. Bros before foes.
UNTIL DAWN
It must take some work, or perhaps none at all, to make the sight of somebody spontaneously combusting dull. Yet when a sixth or seventh figure in Until Dawn imploded, leaving a gory mess of entrails, I barely registered the moment, considering how hard it is to keep your eyes open while you're yawning. (This Is Spinal Tap at least had the grace to visualize only one of its drummers' notorious fates, and without any bloody viscera.) Generally speaking, over the past few years, wide-release horror movies have been so solid-or-better that it's almost refreshing to come upon one that's good-old-fashioned crummy. But that's precisely what director David F. Sandberg's low-budget gross-out is – a senseless, boring, derivative snooze featuring zero characters whom you hope will survive its very, very long night's journey into day.
Maybe this was inevitable. Sandberg's film is based on the 2015 PlayStation entertainment of the same title, and when I texted a video-game-hound pal of mine saying that the game (which I was unfamiliar with) surely had to be scarier and more interesting, he simply replied, with a frowny emoji, “It is neither.” Until Dawn finds five 20-somethings trapped in a mining town's visitor's center where they're gruesomely murdered, resurrected, and slain again and again – a cycle that will continue until they each die 13 times or live to see daybreak. “This is just like that movie!” one of our attractive lunkheads exclaims. “What was it called?” Gosh, I dunno. Groundhog Day? Happy Death Day? Edge of Tomorrow? Palm Springs? 50 First Dates? Yet the chief problem here isn't the familiarity of the conceit. In truth, that's the only borderline-intriguing thing about it. What kills the fun, right along with the kids, is the frustrating air of haphazardness; we really don't have time to be scared, given that our responses to the executions and plotting are less “Aaaaaa!” than “Huuuuh?!”
At first, our heroes are butchered by an ax-wielding maniac – proper demises for a bland quintet that seems air-dropped in from a direct-to-video '80s slasher flick. But then things get loony, and not in enticing ways. The next round of deaths comes via demonic possession. Then by Final Destination-esque coincidence. Then by those aforementioned implosions. Then by Wendigos. There's even a freaking freaky clown doll. In short, screenwriters Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler appear hell-bent on shoehorning every conceivable horror trope into their 100-minute mix, and just when you think they've run out of recognizable genre gimmicks, in pops Peter Storemare – revisiting his voice-over role from the game – to turn it all into a B-grade Cabin in the Woods. Until Dawn would be actively, infuriatingly confounding if its lethargic presentation and distinct lack of personality didn't more often merit a shrug, and the only bit that piqued my interest came when an attempt to flee the premises by car was apparently stopped by … the Iron Giant. Riff on Friday the 13th and The Exorcist and et cetera all you want, Sandberg & Co., but leave that big metallic sweetie alone!
