Hollywood Cliché Meets Random Violence of Asian Movies

Rating: 3/10 (1 January 2015)

I watched this movie not in a theater but on a plane, and I am glad that I did. If I had watched it in a theater, I would've had been depressed for a long time.
The story of the movie is extremely predictable--a former special agent meets a helpless girl, and he uses his superhuman ability to kill any bad guy who stands between him and the girl. Because this story has been used in so many movies, it seems making another movie based on the story is completely redundant. Yet, they decided to make another one, and this movie follows exactly the same cliché. The plot is as predictable as it can be.
The character development is also extremely poor. Our hero (Denzel Washington) risks his life and breaks vow to his beloved deceased wife for a girl whom he barely knows. There is no chemistry between them nor any rational for his behavior. The movie is also filled with cliché characters--cold-blooded hit-man, dirty cops, underachiever who needs a mentor to name a few.
The director tried to make up for the lack of an interesting story and memorable characters with gruesome action scenes that are directly imported from B-level Asian action flicks. Although Denzel could've simply picked up an automatic assault rifle dropped by a bad guy and shot down the rest of them, he chose to use construction equipment to do the job. He was even able to kill a highly-trained former Russian special force hit-man wielding a MP5 submachine gun with a Black and Decker nail gun in a cowboy style shoot out. This might entertain 12-year old boy whose brain is filled with nothing but testosterone, but it makes the movie extremely ridiculous. The action scenes are so ridiculously unbelievable that I couldn't take this movie seriously.
In sum, this is a movie that does not have much reason to exist. You will feel that you've seen at least a dozen of similar movies in the past. Please do yourself a favor and skip this movie.