Ben Affleck's 'The Accountant 2': worth the watch or taxing sequel?

BEN Affleck is in full furrow-browed golden retriever mode in The Accountant 2, a convoluted, overcomplicated follow-up to the 2016 action drama that, when it became an unexpected hit, seemed to bode well for the theatrical fortunes of original movies aimed at grown-up audiences attracted to violence and arcane techno-speak in equal measure.

- ANN HORNADAY

Those qualities are already wearing thin nearly 10 years later, when those same filmgoers might have to refresh their memories: What exactly is the backstory of Christian Wolff, Affleck's autistic forensic accountant who helps bad guys launder their money while wheeling around in an Airstream-cum-armamentarium?

Did he end up on good terms or not-so-good terms with Ray King and Marybeth Medina (J.K. Simmons, Cynthia Addai-Robinson respectively), of the US government's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network?

Was his brawny, easygoing brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) a security consultant or a straight-up hit man? And remind us again why we should care?

Director Gavin O’Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque do their best to answer the last question by way of time-honoured — and shameless — narrative tricks, wrapping up their otherwise off-putting, casually brutal protagonists in all sorts of adorable bows to prove how likeable they are.

I-love-you-man badinage, kids in jeopardy and a line dance set to Steve Earle are just some of the most brazen attempts to recruit the audience in a film that is little more than a delivery system for supercool knife fights, really awesome fistfights and, of course, magically survivable gunfights.