I'm not sure how I first came across "The Accountant" — it might have been on a plane ride or while I was aimlessly channel surfing — but it instantly became one of those movies that I just had to stop and watch every time I happened upon it.
In it, Ben Affleck stars as a genius accountant who's on the spectrum, but who also has a Certain Set of Skills which he puts to good use when he digs too deep into the company he's auditing.
Also starring John Lithgow, Anna Kendrick, JK Simmons and Jon Bernthal, it did pretty well at the box office and found an afterlife in the streaming era.
And now there's a sequel coming.
The second trailer for "The Accountant 2," which opens in theaters on April 25, shows us more of what's to come.
The trailer reveals that FBI agent Ray King (JK Simmons), to whom Christian Wolff (Affleck) has been feeding information about organized crime activity, is murdered. It's up to his successor, Agent Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), to find out who did it — with the help of Wolff and his once-stranged brother Braxton (Bernthal).
One of the things I enjoyed most about the original is the slow reveal of Wolff's abilities, both as a CPA and as a weapons expert.
This time around, there's no such mystery surrounding his character, but what I am looking forward to is spending more time with his brother, Braxton.
Jon Bernthal has been in a number of movies and TV shows, such as Carmine's brother in "The Bear," Tony Soprano's father in "The Many Saints of Newark," and Lee Iacocca in "Ford vs. Ferrari," and he has been captivating in all of them.
I know he played Frank Castle in "The Punisher," but he's overdue for a real star turn.
In the first "The Accountant," his scenes with Affleck didn't come until the end of the movie, but here it looks like they'll be spending a lot more time on-screen together.
Sadly, we probably won't see much of JK Simmons except in the morgue or in flashbacks, but there has to be some hook and — spoiler alert — a lot of people from the first movie didn't make it to the end.
Like the first "Accountant," it seems like "The Accountant 2" will have its share of levity, which helps make for a more interesting movie — it can't just be guns blazing all the time.
I also hope that "The Accountant 2" has time to showcase more of Wolff's accounting skills. Even though I stare at spreadsheets all day, there is something entertaining about a math genius cracking a code.
It's almost like Affleck took the characters his buddy Matt Damon played in "Good Will Hunting" and the "Bourne" trilogy, and said, "What if I combined them into one?"
Based on its IMDB page, "The Accountant 2" doesn't look to have as loaded a cast as the original, but I'm hoping that the weight of its leads will be able to carry the day.
"The Accountant 2" will be released in theaters on April 25.
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