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.

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?

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Just to quickly talk about the screen, in case anyone wants to know. The screen is about 10′ wide and about 6′ tall. The screen itself came from Amazon, and we sewed loops along each edge that the PVC has been run through. There are 50′ of PVC or so that were used on it, 5 10′ pieces. We set it up so we have the screen extremely taught on the pipes with three feet coming down to steady it as well as running lines, from the top corners to the ground to keep it from flying away. Without the projector and everything the screen itself cost around $50 to make.

But let’s get back to John Wick. This Keanu Reeves action film, has him playing the titular character who has just lost his wife and now has to deal with the mob, whom he was tied into previously, who decided that they want his car. He then goes on a rampage, taking down all the bad guys to get revenge. And that’s loosely the plot with a few other things thrown in. I wouldn’t say that the film has much plot really, it’s basically a reason to get the action going and then letting the action run through out. And that’s what I wanted from the film.

The movie does have one major thing going for it story wise, and it’s long enough ago that this spoiler is fine. John Wick is a former hitman for the mob. They refer to him as a the boogeyman. However, we never see any of that backstory in the film. And I really like this. Going into a John Wick film, you know that he’s going to be a destructive force, it’s an action film with his name on it. But I really like that while everyone else is afraid of him, we don’t get that flashback to explain why. It’s a little bit funny that way, because, we do get it explained, but at the start, we just know that John Wick has people scared of him for some reason.

With that said about they plot, I do think that they got the acting right in the film. They did a good job casting and Keanu Reeves does a good job playing this clinical killer. Adding in actors like Ian McShane and Willem Dafoe to the mix just works well well. We also get Lance Reddick who was one of the characters I liked a lot from Fringe, and he has a great role in the film. Are there any performances that stand out as amazing, I don’t think so, but I don’t think any of the portrayals seem all that odd, they just work well.

This is primarily an action film, as I have said, it doesn’t have a ton of plot or a ton of depth to the plot, I should say. And that’s fine, because we mainly want cool action. So does it deliver on that promise? I would say that it does quite well. We get some well done fight scenes and some nice gun battles. What I like about the action is that you always know what is going on. You don’t get the Bourne movie style where you see one two fingers of a fist connecting with someone’s ear and you’re trying to get figure out what is going on. In John Wick, the action is almost a dance, not overly choreographed, but because all the actions are done for efficiency and lethality. It isn’t a situation where there is much in terms of dragged out fights for the sake of having a long action sequence, you get that only when there is a chase or some reason for it to be like that. The cinematography on the film is also done really well to enhance the fights and give you that almost relaxing feeling with the fights. The fights are also accented by the music that is chosen, which I think all work well.

Overall, how is this movie though? I think that it’s a really enjoyable action film. Is it one of my favorite action films of all time, I’m not so sure about that, but I think they have an interesting world they are working in, I think that they have a well defined style of action that they use really well in the film. I think that the plot could have been tighter, like give me a little bit more reasoning than someone liked his car to set off the action, but I don’t need much more plot for something that is just an action film. I want to see the second one, so that’s a good sign. So I guess, overall, it’s a good action film that gives you what you think it’s going to give you, action and not much in the way of plot.

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

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