Mechanic: Resurrection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Mechanic: Resurrection Blu-ray Movie Review

With jumper cables, you mean?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 19, 2016

Charles Bronson and Jason Statham share more in common than just having starred as The Mechanic, and these very similarities are probably at least one reason why Statham was selected to recreate the role of Arthur Bishop, assassin for hire, which Bronson had initially brought to life way back in 1972. Both Bronson and Statham have an immediately distinctive screen persona, one that tends to be no nonsense and not especially prone toward verbosity, and as such, both actors have at times at least been accused of not being all that skilled as emoters. Bronson seemed content to traipse his basically unaltered laconically stern tendencies through any number of action oriented movies, but Statham has tried, perhaps fitfully at times, to prove that he’s a “real” actor in such films as Redemption. Statham also seems to be a bit more able to laugh (and to provoke laughter), both at himself and the general absurdities of action films, in everything from The Expendables franchise to one of the few films he’s made that is intentionally funny, 2015’s Melissa McCarthy vehicle Spy. Mechanic: Resurrection doesn’t really provide any opportunities for Statham to display Sir Laurence Olivier level acting chops, nor does it rely on Statham’s puckish if sometimes subliminal sense of humor, but it provides the same sort of “B-movie Mission: Impossible” thrills that I described the original Bronson Mechanic film as offering.

The absurdities are piled on pretty heavily from the get go in Mechanic: Resurrected, with Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) living (supposedly) incognito in Rio after his (supposed) death at the end of The Mechanic. A gorgeous woman sits down next to him at his favorite watering hole and quickly discloses she knows whom he is and that her employer wants Bishop to take out three people. Bishop declines and a furious melee ensues involving a host of people the gorgeous gal has brought with her, which immediately starts tearing at already existing gaps of logic—if your goal is to convince someone to work for you, do you beat him up— and later shoot at him, for crying out loud—when he demurs? At least the sequence involves a fun if ludicrous scene on a gondola where Arthur gets to literally fly from his would be assailants.

Bishop takes refuge on an (supposedly) isolated island in Thailand that has a resort run by his friend Mei (Michelle Yeoh). Because this is The Mechanic franchise, Bishop is well prepared wherever he goes, and it turns out he has his own private thatched hut that is stuffed to the gills (or at least the briefcase) with all sorts of accoutrements that will come in handy. That includes a pair of binoculars, which Bishop starts using to keep tabs on a pretty young woman walking up and down the beach. That same woman ends up at Mei’s general store like hut, and requests first aid supplies, showing a badly bruised arm which suggests domestic abuse. Later that evening, Mei alerts Bishop that there’s a furious fight going on out on a nearby boat which obviously involves the young woman and a man. Bishop reluctantly agrees to a rescue, which leads to unexpected calamity for the guy, but a burgeoning relationship with the girl for Bishop, even though it turns out the girl, Gina Thorne (Jessica Alba), is a plant sent by the same guy who sent the first gaggle after Bishop in Rio. Already the plot contrivances have pushed Mechanic: Resurrection past the point of no return in terms of suspension of disbelief, and unfortunately this particular section of the film doesn’t involve any outsized acrobatics on the part of Statham to keep the audience distracted from such improbabilities.

Here’s some indication of just how silly the convoluted story is in this film—once Bishop rescues Gina, he quickly figures out that the scheme of the film’s arch villain, Riah Craine (Sam Hazeldine), was to get Bishop to fall for Gina, at which point Craine would kidnap her and then have leverage to make Bishop kill the trio of people Craine wants dealt with (yeah, shooting at your prospective employee didn’t work out so well, did it?). So, armed with this information, what happens? You guessed it—Bishop falls for Gina and Craine’s goons show up and kidnap her, making her survival contingent upon Bishop successfully offing three folks (and making it look like an accident each time, of course). It’s just laugh out loud ludicrous.

That at least gets the film to what really should have been its stock in trade to begin with, namely the convoluted “impossible missions” Bishop is tasked with. The first involves a warlord imprisoned in a Malaysian prison with several similarities to Alcatraz, including being on a remote island that is surrounded by shark infested waters. That means Bishop has to figure out how to get into the prison (something he of course achieves without much fuss), then into the confidences of the warlord (again—easy doin’s), and, finally off the island once the warlord is dispatched (without being repetitive—no sweat).

The second kill is the film’s most spectacular set piece, even if it doesn’t last very long and is a patent ripoff of a somewhat similar scene in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Bishop, again armed with every device he could possibly need, scales up the exterior of a skyscraper in Sydney, in order to prepare a little surprise for a bad guy who takes a swim everyday in a pool that juts out into the air from the side of the building’s penthouse. Suffice it to say, the guy doesn’t exit the pool in the normal fashion.

That brings Bishop to his last (supposed) victim, an arms dealer in Bulgaria named Max Adams (a rather twee Tommy Lee Jones). In a not very surprising twist, especially considering Jones’ general affability in the role, Bishop has a new kinda sorta partner to rein in Crain’s murderous tendencies (a hit list which is never really adequately explained to begin with). The film ticks off just about every action adventure cliché imaginable in its endgame, with Bishop taking out untold bad guys before (supposedly) meeting his fate (again). Yeah, right—we’ve seen this movie too many times before not to know what’s coming next, even if there isn’t another sequel.

Mechanic: Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mechanic: Resurrection is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and Summit Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. Whatever the dramatic deficiencies of the film, this Red shot feature looks spectacular virtually all of the time, making the most of its globe trotting locations (at least in establishing shots and other exteriors). Kind of surprisingly, the film hasn't been aggressively color graded, though some of the Asian sequences have a kind of syrupy yellow ambience, something that can marginally affect fine detail levels in low light conditions. Otherwise, though, this transfer offers superb levels of fine detail in close-ups and a surprisingly warm looking overall palette. There are several scenes which look greenscreened, and those have a noticeably softer appearance than the bulk of the film, at least with regard to backgrounds. Contrast and black levels are solid, and there are no issues with image instability or compression issues.

Mechanic: Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mechanic: Resurrection features an expectedly energetic Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core) track that provides near constant immersion not just with regard to the over the top combat scenes, but also with a glut of ambient environmental effects that are utilized to carefully detail the many locations of the film. A number of scenes involve things like paragliders or helicopters, or even luxury yachts out in the ocean, and these elements provide the soundtrack opportunities for washes of effects which move through the surround channels very realistically. Dialogue (such as it is) and Mark Isham's score are rendered cleanly and clearly, with Isham's score and other source cues also providing regular surround activity. Fidelity is spot on and dynamic range extremely wide on this problem free track.

Mechanic: Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Engineering the Sequel - Inside Mechanic: Resurrection (1080p; 9:55) is pretty standard EPK fare, but features some fun behind the scenes footage and decent interviews.


• Scoring the Action Film with Mark Isham (1080p; 9:00) is a nice featuring the underappreciated Isham, who back in the day was in one of my favorite (little known) bands, Group 87.


• The Malaysian Prison (1080p; 1:22) takes a brief look at the Alcatraz like location.


• Michelle Yeoh, Secret Ally (1080p; 1:14) is an even briefer profile of the actress.


• Statham on Stunts (1080p; 1:23) is another short piece with Statham opining on stunts.

Mechanic: Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In his The Mechanic Blu-ray review, my colleague Martin Liebman summed up the film by saying, "This is a visual tour-de-force and a structurally sound picture; it just has no soul." The same could well be said of Mechanic: Resurrection, minus the structurally sound part. This film's screenplay is such a contrived mess that even devoted adrenaline junkies may not be able tolerate it. That said, the film provides a nonstop array of breathtaking locations and some fun set pieces, and for those considering a purchase, the disc offers top notch technical merits.