John Wick: Chapter 2

It was another summer Saturday afternoon.  Another chance for another John Wick movie.  I did enjoy the 2014 original, and Keanu Reeves is so likeable, I'll watch (almost) anything he does.  2017's JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 can accurately be called more of the same.  More blazing guns, bullets to the head, and flying fists.  Car chases and wrecks.  Gleaming cinematography.  Obvious filmic homages.

But also, questionable motivations.  You may recall that Mr. Wick is an assassin who walked away from the Russian mob's employ to enjoy domestic life, but was pulled back in like movie characters often are.  Wick's beef was that his beloved Mustang was stolen and his puppy was killed.  He retrieves that car at the beginning of this film, but in the ensuing attempt at escape, it is smashed up good.  Several more Russians die.  Violently.  This sequence is exciting and promising.

Soon we meet another criminal from Wick's past - Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Sacmarcio), who helped our hero complete the "impossible task" to ensure his exit from assassin life.  A blood oath was taken.  D'Antonio wants his sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini) killed so he can assume her spot at what is known as the "High Table".  Wick refuses.  He's already come out of retirement once.  But the underworld has a code.  And D'Antonio decides to destroy Wick's house.  There's motivation for ya, especially as his pad belonged in the pages of Architectural Digest.

Fans of this series rabidly describe how deep the drama is.  Refute claims that the hundreds of souls expended in these movies are killed in meaningless violence.  Right.  Dudes, at best Derek Kolstad's characters and scenarios are retreads of countless mafia dramas from around the world.  This is all cartoonish at best.  Another video game.  John Wick's firefight through the catacombs in Rome resembles one from the word go.  Why should we care?

But then Act III happens, when a marker is placed on Wick.  Things get more interesting.  The sequence in the NYC subway, where Wick engages in the most casual gunfire exchange ever, is movie gold.  And Laurence Fishburne, Reeves' co-star from the MATRIX films, shows up as a seedy crime lord called the Bowery King.  The film's rating went up a half star.

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 is good fun and at times laughably implausible, as expected.  Curiously gruesome in moments.  I do enjoy the world created by Kolstad, especially the New York Continental hotel, and "accounts payable".  Reeves again barely does any acting, and says "yeah" almost enough times to create a new drinking game.  But he's in great shape and more than up to the game.  I read he did many of his own stunts.  And they are fantastic.  Director Chad Stahelski returns and does fine work.  Also happily returning is Lance Reddick, the Continental concierge.

P.S. - The two main women, the aforementioned Gerini and Ruby Rose as a mute assassin named Ares, have exemplary roles for this sort of movie.