Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

• Directed by Patrick Hughes
• June 16, 2021 (US)

Darius and Bryce cross paths once again.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is much more of a comedy than the last one. The execution of the story on the whole is much sillier. It almost leans into the cartoonish. For example nobody could get hit by a car that many times as many times as Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) does and come back for more.

The principal cast returns. Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, and Richard E. Grant in a cameo all return for this film. They seem to be having fun and that certainly helps but does not fix everything.

For some reason Amelia (Élodie Yung), the girlfriend that Michael Bryce pined away for during most of the last film is never even mentioned. I can’t think of one word about her said in the entire 90 minutes of Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Either the actress chose not to participate or they simply did not feel that they could fit her into this story. The thing is Amelia was important to Bryce and the story and her absence was rather noticeable to me.

Bryce is a lot less useful here than he was in the last one. Admittedly previously he was always following behind Darius (Samuel L Jackson), but he still had some skills. This time around he’s an emotional wreck who’s useless and just kind of stumbling along. He is a cuck without a woman to be cucked over. All throughout the movie Bryce really wants back is AAA rating. That whole bit was played out in the last film and I’m not sure why they’re revisiting that particular element here. Move on!

Morgan Freeman shows up as Bryce’s stepfather Michael Bryce Sr. That’s all I can really say on that. I don’t think for a moment there was anything special here. Morgan Freeman is just a generally entertaining actor but his part was a bit generic. The only thing that made Michael Bryce Sr. memorable was that Morgan Freeman was cast in the part.

Antonio Banderas on the other hand stars is a Greek gentleman who’s planning on unleashing a terrorist attack on Europe using a computer virus. This plot shoves the movie more into super spy or fast and furious than it does a body action film. In comparison to Morgan Freeman, Antonio Banderas as Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Papadopoulos is seriously over the top. His dress is some weird cross-section between formal and loud. It conveys the characters big ego and helps him standout.

This is a film with good action sequences. The silliness will make you smile. The issue is that it doesn’t do a whole heck of a lot new in comparison to the last film and makes one of the central characters a sad sack of shit.

And for some reason it comes off almost as if it was a sequel to another movie or another movie all together that got re-purposed as a sequel to this. Something about it just doesn’t quite fit with the first film. Maybe it’s the halfhearted callbacks. Maybe it ignored elements from the last film in this film. I’m not sure but something just doesn’t quite connect here.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is not a bad movie, but it is not great either. It might even be very good if it were its own film but as a sequel to the first one it’s lacking something. I’ll give this an if you want!