Latest news with #GavinOConnor
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Accountant 2' Is One of the Year's Best-Reviewed Sequels. Does It Live up to the Hype?
The Accountant 2, a long-in-gestation sequel to 2016's The Accountant, is one of the best-reviewed sequels of the year. But does it live up to the hype?The film sees Ben Affleck, playing deadly accountant Christian Wolf, reteam with original director Gavin O'Connor (Miracle, Warrior) for a continuation of Wolf's arc. Critics have been surprisingly enthusiastic about The Accountant 2. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 76 percent critical consensus against the original's middling 53 percent. Audiences have equally embraced the film, with its international box office grosses exceeding $100 million (nearly $70 million of which came from North America). With The Accountant 2 now streaming, is the Amazon/MGM sequel really as good as everyone is saying?The Accountant concluded with Affleck's formerly meek CPA (who did time in prison for an accidental murder and then became an assassin whilst cooking the books for crime families, don't ask) gunning down a bunch of hitmen, sparing his contract killer brother (Jon Berenthal), and installing Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) as the Director of the Treasury Department in the seat vacated by Raymond King (J.K. Simmons). Phew! The Accountant 2 picks up several years after the events of the original. O'Connor opens with a terrific hook, an impeccably choreographed, nearly dialogue-free sequence in which King is tracked down and assassinated in the middle of a Los Angeles nightclub whilst trying to recruit assassin Anaïs (Daniella Pineda) to recover a kidnapped child. Medina is brought to identify his body and finds an ominous message—'Find the Accountant'—scrawled on King's arm. That leads her to Wolf, who agrees to help Medina find the missing boy on the condition that they bring his brother, Braxton, into the you can't already tell, the contrivances pile up fast and furious in The Accountant 2. The movie is tonally all over the place, veering from mass child murders to dating-game comedy skits to Face/Off style revelations, sometimes within the same scene. There's also a most unexpected journey into X-Men territory come the third act, and a chase scene in which Affleck, on a motorcycle, seems to morph back into Batman. But because the movie wears its outlandishness with such confidence, all of it works better than it should. The Accountant 2 is nothing if not unwieldy (frankly, it's bizarre), but it knows what it is and embraces itself. There's even a bit of genuine emotion in how the day is saved, however predictably, come the end. The Accountant, which was a fine programmer in its own right, called back to low-key action movies of the early aughts, which boiled down to men solving problems with their guns, both rifles and muscles. The Accountant 2 offers the same solution for life's woes, but this time filtered through an action/buddy-cop formula that recalls straight-to-video shoot 'em ups of the late '80s and early '90s. It's an interesting about-face for the franchise, one which inherently allows everyone to loosen up and have a bit more can tell the filmmakers are particularly enthralled with Bernthal—he essentially gets three introductory scenes, all of which pay off with a fairly clever punchline. He and Affleck are quite good together, finding an odd-couple rhythm which the first movie lacked. Addai-Robinson, as the buttoned-up fed, essentially steals the movie with a sharp straight-man performance. The unexpected third wheel in this sibling reunion, she brings a warmth and wit that's typically missing from this sort of character and grounds the movie even when it threatens to spin out of control.O'Connor proves himself a much more adept director of action and schlock than he managed on the first installment, which often toppled into self-seriousness. Here, he deftly toggles between neo-noir tropes and building a proper mystery while still indulging in a level of off-the-wall chaos that will please genre fans. The final action sequence, an extended homage to Dirty Harry, is well-staged and rooted in logical stakes. It's a refreshing antidote to the world-saving bravado of most modern blockbusters, a callback to a nearly forgotten era of action filmmaking. Believe the hype: The Accountant 2 is one of this year's best, and weirdest, sequels.'The Accountant 2' Is One of the Year's Best-Reviewed Sequels. Does It Live up to the Hype? first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 5, 2025
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Ben Affleck's ‘The Accountant 2' Gets Prime Video Streaming Date
Jon Bernthal and Ben Affleck in "The Accountant 2." The Accountant 2 — the sequel to Ben Affleck's 2016 original — is premiering on streaming for Prime Video subscribers this week. Find out when you watch it at home. Rated R, The Accountant 2 opened in theaters on April 25. The official summary for The Accountant 2 reads, 'Christian Wolff (Affleck) has a talent for solving complex problems. When an old acquaintance is murdered, leaving behind a cryptic message to 'find the accountant,' Wolff is compelled to solve the case. "Realizing more extreme measures are necessary, Wolff recruits his estranged and highly lethal brother, Brax (Jon Bernthal), to help. In partnership with U.S. Treasury Deputy Director Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), they uncover a deadly conspiracy, becoming targets of a ruthless network of killers who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried.' Directed by 2016's The Accountant filmmaker Gavin O'Connor, The Accountant 2 also stars J.K. Simmons and Daniella Pineda. The Accountant 2 will premiere on Prime Video on Thursday, June 5, Amazon announced on Monday. The Prime Video-only streaming debut for The Accountant 2 isn't completely out of the ordinary since the film was produced by Amazon MGM Films. The Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Christmas movie Red One followed a similar release pattern last year when it debuted in theaters and skipped the premium video on demand route in favor of making a streaming video on demand premiere on Prime Video. For viewers who don't have Prime Video, there are a couple of options to subscribe to the service. Subscriptions to Amazon Prime are available for $14.99 or $139 per year, which includes access to Prime Video. Otherwise, Prime Video-only subscriptions are available for $8.99 per month. The Accountant 2 has earned nearly $65 million in North American theaters and $36.5 million internationally for a worldwide box office tally of $101.5 million to date against an $80 million production budget before prints and advertising, according to The Numbers. The film received a 76% 'fresh' rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics based on 199 reviews. The RT Critics Consensus for the film reads, 'Improving on the original by leaning into Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal's buddy comedy chemistry, The Accountant 2 can safely be filed under a good time at the movies.' The Accountant 2 also received a 92% 'fresh' score on RT's Popcornmeter based on 5,000-plus verified user ratings. The RT audience summary for the film reads, 'Affleck and Bernthal make for compelling leads in The Accountant 2, a violence-packed sequel that accrues enough humor and heart you can take to the bank.' The Accountant 2 makes its streaming video on demand debut on Prime Video on Thursday.
Geek Tyrant
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Anna Kendrick Is 'A Hundred Percent In' for THE ACCOUNTANT 3, Says Director Gavin O'Connor — GeekTyrant
While The Accountant 2 delivers a heavy dose of action and brotherly bonding between Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal, Anna Kendrick's Dana Cummings is missing in action. Good news though, it sounds like Kendrick is all in for a return, just not in this movie. Director Gavin O'Connor recently spoke with The New York Times about the future of the franchise, teasing that he's already thinking ahead. "We've had some preliminary conversations. I am personally running from another puzzle movie, which we've done twice now," O'Connor said, hinting that a third film might move in a different direction. "One thing we've talked about is the idea of bringing Anna Kendrick [who plays Christian's love interest in the first movie] back. Maybe Christian can finally get the love that he deserves." Affleck joked, "We're hoping she still likes us," to which O'Connor casually dropped the real update: "Actually, Ben, she and I have been texting. She said she's a hundred percent in if we want." Fans of the original 2016 film will remember that Kendrick's Dana sparked a sweet but complicated romance with Affleck's Christian Wolff. And while her absence in The Accountant 2 might feel like a gap, it was part of the plan. O'Connor explained to Entertainment Weekly that the focus this time around was always going to be on the brothers. "The whole point was exploring the brothers and that emotional line between them. That was always the intention, so she was never going to be in the second." Now playing in theaters, The Accountant 2 picks up with Affleck's Christian, an accountant on the autism spectrum who launders money for criminal organizations, teaming up with his brother Braxton (Bernthal) to solve the murder of Christian's former Treasury Department contact Raymond King (J.K. Simmons). I've enjoyed this franchise and with this movie doing well at the box office, a third chapter of the story might come together.
