Denzel Washington’s Robert McCall is going out on a high: The Equalizer 3 has landed the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the franchise.
What’s not to love in The Equalizer movies? You have an Oscar-winning actor pummelling bad guys in cold, calculated, brutal fashion, whether it’s shoving a corkscrew through a man’s mouth, basically crucifying a man with a nail gun, or pressing a mafioso’s nerve so hard it nearly makes him poo his pants.
Yet, for all its glorious action and B-movie goodness, critics haven’t always been so kind to the series, attracting mixed reviews in contrast to its solid box office grosses and audience reception.
Well, as Washington bows out as the vigilante, The Equalizer 3 has been received well by critics across the world, achieving the best Rotten Tomatoes score in the trilogy.
The Equalizer 3 Rotten Tomatoes score is a series best
The Equalizer 3 is currently scored at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes.
For context, the first entry in the franchise has a 61% score, while its sequel is considered rotten with a 52% rating. Interestingly, audience scores for all three movies are consistently high, going from 76% to 60% to a whopping 92% for the final chapter.
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Dexerto gave the movie a positive write-up, with our review reading: “Denzel Washington’s threequelizer is an all-you-can-stomach buffet of violent delights and ends, and an affectionate goodbye to a modern B-movie legend.”
In an interview with Collider, director Antoine Fuqua was asked why he thinks so many people resonate with the actor’s portrayal of McCall. “I think they’re connecting to him because he’s a common man. There’s nothing fancy about him or anything. He seems like somebody you sit down and have a tea with or a friend of yours,” he said.
“He just happens to be a brutal destroyer when it comes time to do that. But I think that’s what people are connecting to. You know, you could see yourself in Robert McCall.”
The violence is a big part of it, obviously, and the third movie boasts his gnarliest kills. “It’s his final masterpiece to take out some bad guys that deserved it… they had to go in the worst way. They had to know what it felt like to be terrorized,” Fuqua added.
The Equalizer 3 is in UK cinemas now and it’ll arrive in the US and worldwide theaters from September 1. Check out our other coverage below: