In cinemas February 17th!
Spoilers for 'John Wick' (the first one) but then it’s not much more than a movie about an angry Keanu Reeves killing everyone he meets, so maybe not worry about it too much.
Anyway, chapter 2 takes place in the immediate aftermath of the first movie, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has killed everyone he set out to kill plus a few people who were dumb enough to try and kill him in return, and now he’s looking for his stolen car. We open with him finding it in the process of eliminating another branch of the Russian mafia in a pretty epic gun fight slash car chase sequence just to tie up loose ends before we move on.
John goes home with his new dog and prepares to settle in to retirement once more, but unfortunately for him he barely has time to put his feet up before there’s knock at his door. It seems word has gotten out that he’s been on a killing spree and some have presumed this means he is back to work and an old acquaintance is at his door to call in a debt he is owed. John turns him down and our new villain proceeds to aggressively threaten him into accepting the deal despite everyone around him being able to see what a stupid idea that is.
Anyway, chapter 2 takes place in the immediate aftermath of the first movie, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has killed everyone he set out to kill plus a few people who were dumb enough to try and kill him in return, and now he’s looking for his stolen car. We open with him finding it in the process of eliminating another branch of the Russian mafia in a pretty epic gun fight slash car chase sequence just to tie up loose ends before we move on.
John goes home with his new dog and prepares to settle in to retirement once more, but unfortunately for him he barely has time to put his feet up before there’s knock at his door. It seems word has gotten out that he’s been on a killing spree and some have presumed this means he is back to work and an old acquaintance is at his door to call in a debt he is owed. John turns him down and our new villain proceeds to aggressively threaten him into accepting the deal despite everyone around him being able to see what a stupid idea that is.
This is the main problem of the film, the first 'John Wick' was about the idiot son of a gangster accidentally making enemies of the most dangerous assassin who ever lived because he’s an idiot. In this film we have a relatively uninteresting sociopath gangster (or something, I’m not actually sure what his deal was) deliberately and repeatedly making enemies of the most dangerous assassin who ever lived because presumably he’s an even bigger idiot.
This is actually a huge disconnect for me, the first movie was a clever revenge story that whilst the “bad guys” were clearly bad guys our hero was also basically a bad guy and the script wouldn’t have required too much manipulation to turn it into a horror movie where John Wick relentless hunts and murders a bunch of people who whilst far from being saints don’t necessarily deserve a gruesome death.
Coupled with some amazing fight sequences and a return to form for Keanu, seriously he was born to play this character, the first movie was kind of an unexpected surprise. Simplistic maybe but it did what it did to perfection and constructed an elaborate world with it’s own mythology and rules that though we only scrapped the surface, was clearly very well thought out and opened up an infinite amount of possibility.
This is actually a huge disconnect for me, the first movie was a clever revenge story that whilst the “bad guys” were clearly bad guys our hero was also basically a bad guy and the script wouldn’t have required too much manipulation to turn it into a horror movie where John Wick relentless hunts and murders a bunch of people who whilst far from being saints don’t necessarily deserve a gruesome death.
Coupled with some amazing fight sequences and a return to form for Keanu, seriously he was born to play this character, the first movie was kind of an unexpected surprise. Simplistic maybe but it did what it did to perfection and constructed an elaborate world with it’s own mythology and rules that though we only scrapped the surface, was clearly very well thought out and opened up an infinite amount of possibility.
This time around we get to see a lot more of this secret world but as with any mystery the more you know the less interesting it is. The move to another branch of the Continental in Rome is almost meaningless and Lawrence Fishbourne commanding an army of homeless people and pigeons is actually kind of silly, they only serve to over complicate the world. In addition it all makes the rules of both this world and the assassins guild within it much less clear. There’s a cool scene where Keanu and Common walk through a crowded area covertly firing silenced pistols at each other, and it’s a fun idea, but why do they do it, from a practical standpoint.
This “secret” society doesn’t seem too concerned with secrecy, the number of people aware of it’s existence seems to be growing beyond it’s assassin base and the assassins themselves don’t seem too concerned about openly firing their guns in public, starting fist fights in the street, and equate wandering into a building and shooting everyone they meet as the same thing as a meticulously planned assassination. So the world has been dumbed down a bit and the villain has been dumbed down a lot and it’s impossible to have the same unique impact as the first movie, so … did I like this? I feel like I shouldn’t like this.
Okay, so on a positive side it is basically more of the same from the first movie, cool action, interesting world building, cool action, Keanu Reeves owning the show and cool action. I mean it’s mostly cool action, that’s kind of why we’re here, and it does it well just not quite as well as the first movie and as I’ve said it’s impossible to create the same experience a second time around. This is basically a less interesting plot with less likeable characters. It comes to life a little when John becomes the target of the not-so-secret assassins society and we meet a handful of seemingly unique characters who come after him but they all just turn out to be nameless stunt people with guns for shooting and fists for punching and it’s just a whole lot of nothing.
This “secret” society doesn’t seem too concerned with secrecy, the number of people aware of it’s existence seems to be growing beyond it’s assassin base and the assassins themselves don’t seem too concerned about openly firing their guns in public, starting fist fights in the street, and equate wandering into a building and shooting everyone they meet as the same thing as a meticulously planned assassination. So the world has been dumbed down a bit and the villain has been dumbed down a lot and it’s impossible to have the same unique impact as the first movie, so … did I like this? I feel like I shouldn’t like this.
Okay, so on a positive side it is basically more of the same from the first movie, cool action, interesting world building, cool action, Keanu Reeves owning the show and cool action. I mean it’s mostly cool action, that’s kind of why we’re here, and it does it well just not quite as well as the first movie and as I’ve said it’s impossible to create the same experience a second time around. This is basically a less interesting plot with less likeable characters. It comes to life a little when John becomes the target of the not-so-secret assassins society and we meet a handful of seemingly unique characters who come after him but they all just turn out to be nameless stunt people with guns for shooting and fists for punching and it’s just a whole lot of nothing.
So it’s good for what is more or less a two hour fight scene but I suppose you’d do just as well watching the first one again. You won’t be disappointed but you probably won’t be rushing to watch it a second time.
Review by Kristian Mitchell-Dolby.
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Rate the film and why not write your own review in the comments?
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