If you’re a dad like me, you secretly enjoy doing your taxes. You also not so secretly enjoy movies where things blow up real good. That made 2016’s “The Accountant” a primo dad movie, even if it had more holes in its logic than Pete Hegseth issuing a public statement denying that he texted war plans from his executive toilet. This was a dad movie that was entertaining enough, and different enough, for me to forgive its myriad flaws.

But can I say the same for “The Accountant 2,” which opened Friday? Well, I checked out a screening earlier this week and subjected Ben Affleck’s latest shoot-‘em-up to my proven dad movie test. Let’s get right to it.

What’s the deal with this movie?

Just like the first time around, Affleck plays Christian Wolff, a ruthless assassin living with TV character autism while posing as an unassuming tax cruncher. At the end of the first “Accountant” movie, we learn that Wolff’s friend from his childhood autism clinic (Alison Wright) is actually his master computer hacker assistant. Fast-forward eight years, and that entire clinic is now populated with kids who, like Wolff, have acquired savant syndrome and even greater hacking superpowers.

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Can they break into any computer on earth, even without DOGE credentials?

Yes.

Can they enhance on any face caught on camera and match it to a name within seconds?

You know they can. They’re kinda like a team of little superheroes. None of them are given any memorable character traits (or names) either, so that’s an unwelcome bit of Marvel energy. I’d have rather gotten to know these kids as people, rather than just quirky geniuses. 

That goes a little bit for Affleck’s character, too. While the original “Accountant” took his condition relatively seriously, here it’s played almost entirely for comedy, like autism is just some sort of cool parlor trick.

Ben Affleck, right, and Jon Bernthal star in the new film “The Accountant 2.”

Warner Bros/Prime Video

Does it work?

Shockingly, it does. We get to watch Affleck game a speed-dating night so that every woman in attendance wants to bone him, until they sit down with him and find out he’s a bit off. He also wins over a sexy lady (Dominique Domingo) by memorizing country line dancing moves and executing them flawlessly while dressed like a C-suite executive. And he can tell the sex of a cat within seconds of looking at it. Credit goes to Affleck, who’s always been a better actor than he’s given credit for, for getting real laughs out of material that would quickly prove tiresome in other hands.

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What about the plot?

Oh right, the plot! Uhhhhh …

Well, is there a plot?

Sort of. Given that we’re in Sequel Land here, the audience doesn’t get to experience the rush of learning who Christian Wolff actually is and how he goes about his work. The first “Accountant” movie had a lot of fine action sequences in it, but they were boosted by a plot that had Affleck doing real, extensive accountant work to solve the mystery before him. “Accountant 2” has no need for any of that, which means we get a far more rote plot instead. Affleck is Special Needs James Bond, and he goes out to do Special Needs James Bond stuff. This would have been cool if said plot had been coherent, but uh …

OK, well explain the non-plot as best you can.

We open with a thrilling sequence that ends with treasury agent Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) gunned down by an unknown assassin (Grant Harvey), who was actually hoping to kill ANOTHER unknown assassin (Daniella Pineda) instead of a boring old government bureaucrat. Before King is murdered, we learn that he’s trying to track down a missing Salvadoran family (maybe ICE kidnapped them?), and all he has to go by is an old photograph of them.

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King’s former colleague Marybeth (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, who’s given precious little to work with) unearths that photograph after the murder and takes it upon herself to finish the job. So she tracks down Wolff to aid her, after which Wolff then tracks down his own brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal), to also help, because … ??? S—t, I don’t remember. But the filmmakers wanted Bernthal involved in the story, so here he is.

Is he good?

Yes. Jon Bernthal is an actor who’s been waiting decades now for material worthy of his talents. Even David Simon couldn’t draw a compelling character for him on “We Own This City.” But “Accountant 2” director Gavin O’Connor is smart enough to let Bernthal take his character and run with it. The result is a genuine blast to watch. Bernthal plays Braxton as a lovable psychopath, not unlike Don Cheadle’s Mouse in “Devil in a Blue Dress.” In fact, the banter between Affleck and Bernthal IS this movie’s raison d’être, because the plot itself is too murky to follow.

Why is that?

I have to issue a SPOILER WARNING here, so proceed at your own risk. Affleck and Bernthal have to find the mystery lady from the opening sequence (Pineda) to crack the case. Well, it turns out that the Salvadoran mother from the original case photograph IS Pineda. You see, the mother was attacked and ended up needing total facial reconstruction, which apparently turned her into a dead ringer for Florence Pugh. Oh, and the attack also gave HER acquired savant syndrome, making her a super-mega-genius. None of this is clear because Pineda looks NOTHING like the mom in the photograph. I know that’s supposed to be explicit, but the two women don’t even have the same body type. I couldn’t keep track of which character was which, and neither could my 13-year-old son, who deemed the movie “good but hard to follow.”

Does that matter?

Not really, because the story ends up boiling down to the good guys having to infiltrate a drug cartel compound to free a bunch of enslaved kids. It’s basic “Rambo” s—t that anyone can parse, but it renders this movie far less distinctive than its predecessor. I wanted more accounting to go with all of the bloodshed. That’s what made the first “Accountant” movie cool.

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Does THAT matter?

Again, not really. The audience at my screening, myself included, roared at every one-liner and yelped at every cool dispatching of a bad guy. In its best moments, “Accountant 2” is a well-made action buddy comedy.

Oh, like “The Nice Guys”!

Yeah, but dial your expectations way, way down from that.

So is this a proper dad movie?

Well that’s the thing. “The Accountant 2” isn’t a GOOD movie, but it’s definitely a fun one. That makes it a legit dad movie but not much more than that. You will watch pieces of it on TNT sometime a few years from now.

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Do you think there’ll be an “Accountant 3”?

Can you increase your federal refund by putting a chunk of your savings into a SEP IRA? I think you know the answer.