12 Recent Films That Fell Apart In The Final Act

The third - and by far the worst - film in an unexpected trilogy, The Equalizer 3 starts out nicely by giving audiences more of what made the first two films so enjoyable: Denzel Washington being an ultra-cool bad-ass, a gently poignant tone and brilliantly directed fight scenes which are so violent they almost feel like something out of a slasher film.

The trouble is, the first two movies actually built up to a proper climax. The first film's warehouse finale is arguably one of the greatest freaking action scenes in any Hollywood film of the past ten years, while the second film hurricane-set final showdown was also a beautifully-made slice of pulp.

In this case, the finale is such a damp squib that it honestly felt insulting, especially considering the track record this trilogy previously had with delivering great fight scenes. It's just a series of darkly-lit kill scenes in which Robert McCall (Washington) kills the previously formidable bad guys without any sort of resistance.

"Wait... that's it?!" is the last feeling any action movie climax should provoke, but unfortunately that's exactly what happened here. Equalizer 3 does, in fairness, conclude the title character's arc nicely but this was supposed to be an action film, and it fatally under-delivered there.