Variety reports that Denzel Washington will once again be taking on the role of Robert McCall, the implausibly well-timed vigilante known to movie audiences as The Equalizer. Washington last played the character in 2014, when he teamed up with his former Training Day director Antoine Fuqua to use brutal gunplay and exploding microwaves to drive Liam Neeson-esque fear into the hearts of Eastern European scuzzballs. Despite middling reviews, said mayhem brought in $192 million at the box office, which might explain why Washington is returning for another go-round—presumably after getting an okay from his chiropractor to try to lift another heavy block of schlocky, violent action up to his usual level of cinematic quality.
Besides Washington, there’s no word yet on whether the rest of the original film’s cast and crew, including Fuqua and Chloe Grace Moretz, who played the film’s requisite young white woman in danger, will be returning for the sequel. Fuqua is currently working on a remake of The Magnificent Seven, also with Washington, while Moretz’s young prostitute character seemed to be all equaled out by the time the first film ended. But as long as there are bad guys with thick accents and ill-advised tattoos, and as long as movie audiences will pay to see said bad guys get blown up in semi-creative ways, The Equalizer will be there, reminding us all of why it’s the scariest, most justice-craving part of any modern stereo.