Metacritic reviews

The Equalizer 3 ends the trilogy strong with a style, energy, and cohesiveness that most sequels aren’t capable of. Fuqua and Washington’s circle feels complete and delivers a showstopping dessert at the end of a solid three-course meal they’ve been preparing for almost a decade.

Like a bullet fired by the Equalizer himself, this third film is efficient, effective, and entertaining, with a narrative that eschews twists on top of twists in favor of drawing the viewer into this small town where Robert’s found refuge.

Beyond the righteous action and visceral violence, it’s Washington’s swagger and charisma that compels.

If this is the end of The Equalizer, it’s a good one, a high note that overcomes confusion, complications, and convolutions to give everyone — Robert, Emma, kind-hearted Italians, the audience — a lavish adventure to remember.

As self-contained as any episode of the television show upon which it’s based. It’s also as efficient and straightforward as that predecessor, if not quite as disposable, thanks to its peerless star.

The canon of "The Equalizer" has never taken the world by storm, usually percolating in the background of popular culture as a piece of intense ephemera. Robert McCall is a former Marine and DIA officer, but that is entirely ignored in part 3. He's a superhero played by Denzel Washington, and the filmmakers assume that is enough. For many audience members, it will be.

Denzel Washington is compelling in Robert McCall's swan song, but the story often falls flat.

A solid conclusion to an unlikely trilogy and a fitting end to Robert McCall’s character arc — with Washington still entertaining as a deliverer of slick justice.

Like McCall, [Washington] knows his tools, an arsenal not of guns and blades but of withering stares and crumpled smiles. It’s almost enough to outshine everything else.

For those not motivated purely by a desire for cinematic bloodlust accompanied by an abrasive musical score that sounds like electronic fingernails on a blackboard, there’s some fun to be had.