John Wick: Chapter 2

~NO SPOILERS~

This movie essentially starts right after the first one ends, right at the top-down view of New York City. Dark humor abounds,
bullets rip through head and bodies, and Wick is unstoppable.

This film should be held as the gold standard for action movies. There is very little camera shake during fights and Reeves clearly has spent a lot of time preparing for this role. You can see nearly every take-down, every gunshot, and Wick has to reload at inconvenient times in a realistic fashion which also adds to the hilarity of the following kills.

Overall the acting performances were solid. Reeves isn't known for having an extremely wide range, but his devotion to making this movie a kick-ass martial arts production is second to none. I felt the villain was a bit on the weak side though, but he did his role justice. Ian McShane's character remains the strongest especially combined with the last film.

The lighting is superb! There's a red-blue theme that is in nearly every nightclub and darkly lit areas and its absolutely lovely to look at. Overall cinematography is very good.

Definitely worth seeing!

Grows the world. Grows the legend. But the story itself and the man himself remain firmly retreading the steps they took in the first outing. Not too harsh a criticism though, 'cause that one was damn good too.

Final rating:★★★½ - I strongly recommend you make the time.

I was really hoping I would like this movie. I so enjoyed the first one. However, when the credits started to roll at the end I found myself wondering “What the fuck happened?”.

Be warned that the rest of this review might contain a spoiler or two.

One thing I really liked about the first movie was, as you can read in my review about that one, that it was a no bullshit, kill the bad guys and no emotional regrets, kind of movie. John Wick went all out for revenge and at the same time we got introduced into this cool world of assassins, safe havens, hidden “shops” for guns, classy tailors providing bullet proof costumes etc. etc.

In this movie he is forced onto a job by a real asshole. He is constantly reluctant and walks around with a sad puppy face all the time. Of course said asshole screws him halfway through the movie and that would have been a good time to start get back on track with some decent payback story but unfortunately the script writers thought otherwise. After some more of the same shit no one really wins in the end (although one of the two adversaries suffer a more “permanent” setback than the other).

Worse is that, in my opinion, in their eager to put together some crap drama this movie essentially screwed up the possibilities for a John Wick 3 unless they pull some rather big surprise rabbit out of the hat for that one.

There are plenty of action in the movie of course but also her I feel that it was a bit too over the top. No one, absolutely no one, seems to be able to shoot straight except for John Wick. This makes the action feel more like a parody a’la Kill Bill than a more serious action, revenge movie. Yes it is cool to watch but only up to a point. Heck, if this would have been a Star Trek (TOS) episode Hollywood’s entire supply of red shirts would have been used up on a single movie. While I am bitching I should perhaps also mention that the amount of beating that John Wick seems to be able to absorb is … unbelievable.

I did enjoy the movie but not at all as much as I hoped I would. To me it has a completely different spirit than what I remember from the first one and the ending is, again to me at least, not a happy one.

Having said that the action sequences are as cool, crazy but cool, and violent as they are unbelievable. I found it a bit sad that they wrecked his nice car though.

Overall a enjoyable movie but no match for the first chapter and I cannot bring myself to give it more than 3 out of 5 stars.