John Wick Poster
Movies Revisit Rewatch Review

Rewatch, Revisit, Review – John Wick 2

So, I actually saw this movie over a week ago, in preparation for seeing John Wick 3 eventually, since that’s now in theaters. This was party of my watching through after having seen the first one a couple of weeks ago now.

John Wick 2 picks up very shortly after the first film as John is trying to get his car back. It jumps straight into the action when John Wick has a marker called in for a favor he had done before, for him, so he could get out. He doesn’t want to get back into the world of assassins, but knows that the only way to truly get out is to do what the guy is asking of him, then he’ll be free. Queue a lot of action and John Wicking.

I’m not sure that I like this film quite as well as the first one. While the action in this film is as great, the action in the first, in particular the fight through the night club, has a beautiful poetry to it. In here, the main fights, while they are extremely well done and enjoyable to watch, I’m not sure that the poetry, the dance, that the first movie had in that scene is fully captured again. Now, that’s not to knock the action, the action in the film is beautiful again. The choreography and “gun fu” in the fights is very enjoyable to watch. In particular the last big fight in the film is well done and the setting for that fight is very interesting. I’ll let you find out what that setting is when you watch it yourself.

Another thing that is a bit different in this film is that you get a bit more plot than in the first John Wick film. I’m not 100% sure that it’s needed in the film, but it doesn’t really hold it back. There are some films, Rampage for example, that can end up keeping the action away from the plot and you feel like the movie is missing the point of what it’s supposed to be. Even with the addition of more plot in John Wick 2, it still is chock full of action and I’m pretty sure that’s what we all wanted to watch. It also helps because this is not a long film, it is just over 2 hours with credits, but that feels right and about as long as you’d want a film like John Wick to run. The first film was a little bit shorter, and the extra minutes probably were the added plot. I wouldn’t want a film like this one to run much longer.

John Wick 2 Screen Shot
Image Source: Lionsgate

The John Wick franchise, in my opinion, is what they tried to turn the Bourne Franchise into, but they place more plot in Bourne and less interesting fighting. Just to touch on that quickly as I wrap up, I like, in my fights, to be able to see most things that are happening, not the quick close-up and quick cutting fighting from Bourne, also they did the actual plot no services, but that’s besides the point. Wick gets the action on point, it keeps the plots clean and simple and makes a really enjoyable film. Am I excited to see John Wick 3 sometime soon? I’m not sure I’d say I’m excited, but I know it’ll be a good time and will be an enjoyable film, so I won’t complain about that. The John Wick franchise is a good group of films, and if you want great gun fighting, I doubt there is better.

Overall Grade: B
Critical Grade: B
Fan Grade: B+

Have you watched the John Wick movies, how do you compare the first to the second? What is your favorite gun fu movie?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.