If anything, you just need a lie down halfway through. It's also perhaps a little too long at two hours, but there aren't exactly any boring bits. But the prospect of John Wick going international is very exciting. At times, it feels like every single person on the planet is secretly a hitman, and its follow-up will have to try not to venture too far out of the realms of realism. The main quibbles with the film are that it's perhaps a little too silly towards the end. Like Keanu, he's turned up at training sessions. He has quite possibly given the finest performance of a former rapper turned action star ever (sorry Fiddy). It even has a decent villain! We've banged on about how Hollywood action movies seem to have ditched memorable villains in recent years, but Riccardo Scamarcio as former hitman Santino D'Antonio is a hateful little scrote that you really want John to take out.Ī special shoutout has to go to Common as fellow hitman Cassian. It was rather wonderful seeing Matrix buddies Keanu and Laurence reunite on screen, even if Laurence was hamming it up quite considerably. From Ian McShane's suave Continental chief, to Lance Reddick's deadpan concierge, to Laurence Fishburne's king of the homeless hitmen. The supporting cast are also a roll call of intriguing characters. And he makes somewhat stupid decisions that he'll come to regret later. Here, we learn more about John's past and his hitman origins, while also realising that he's not quite the perfect hero. Much of the same story, but done this time around with the kind of budget and promotion that it deserved.īut it's not just the action that's been beefed up.
It's almost a soft reboot of the first film. It's like when Grand Theft Auto III was followed by Vice City and so on. John Wick: Chapter 2, unfortunately falls into the latter category and one prays a third instalment will not be green-lit.This feels like when a video game proves popular and then a sequel comes out and it's far more expansive than before. Neo-noir films generally go down as masterpieces or as complete disasters, such is the consequence of playing with fire. If the first-half feels a bit moronic, with silly fight sequences that evoke yawns more than gasps, things do pick up after the interval but the damage has been done and it’s too little too late. Laurence Fishburne is wasted as the eccentric Bowery King and an actor of such talents probably should have been given a meatier role, perhaps even confronting Keanu head-on in what could have been an interesting fight.Īnd that’s the problem, as we know John Wick is going to mow down wave after wave of uzi-toting, knife wielding enemies and there is not a single scene in which you would say “Oh no, he’s in trouble now, please don’t die!” We get it, he is still unhinged and doesn't have much of a choice, but with C-grade villains getting way more screen time than required, this net-noir film flatters to deceive big time. The problem is, there is too much of senseless action and while we knew that having seen the first film, John Wick: Chapter 2 seems to have too little motive as compared to the first. The actor who isn't a stranger to action-films ( The Matrix Trilogy in case you are wondering) is superb and his deadpan humour literally kills (pun unintended). Seemingly never breaking a sweat, the assassin who just wants to be left alone (Where have we seen that before?) but can take on an army if need be, induces some jaw-dropping moments as he hacks and shoots his way to targets. New York to Rome to New York again, the action is relentless to the point that the viewer feels the splatter is spraying onto themselves and isn't just confined to the screen.Ĭarnage-Incarnate himself is Keanu Reeves, comfortable severing limbs and hacking arteries as he is with a glass of bourbon in the aftermath.
Of course our goody-two shoes hitman doesn't want the job but has his arm-twisted to go ahead and gets it over and done with. Officially considering himself retired for the second time after technically finishing off the Russian mafia, it is the Italian mafioso’s who turn their attention on the Boogeyman aka John Wick. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) rarely makes a bad decision in John Wick: Chapter 2, and even when he does, it seems like he still did the right thing.Ĭontinuing where we left off in the first film, John Wick (2014), we find the titular character tying up few loose ends in the typically-gruesome but initially satisfying to watch manner.
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