Movie Breakdown: John Wick: Chapter 2 (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
John Wick was a great little action movie: simple, brutal, beautifully choreographed, stretching its little arms just far enough to encapsulate a cool world of assassins and their rules. This is a sequel though, to an action movie, and well, I think we all know how those can go. Nonetheless, I’m tentatively excited.
Post-Screening Ramble:
John Wick: Chapter 2 isn’t just a great action movie – one rife with twists and turns and enough one-on-an-army action scenes to keep you sated to the inevitable third film in the series – but a reminder of what a great sequel looks like. Chad Stahleski’s second film in what we can all hope well be a long, long franchise isn’t terribly different from the first John Wick film. Keanu Reeves (the titular character), a retired assassin of some, um, note, is trying to stay retired, but for a variety of reasons he keeps getting dragged back in. Headshots, lots of them, occur; a lot of European thugs die; Keanu Reeves says little, but runs the action scenes like a professional. It doesn’t seem to spend a considerably larger amount of money, this sequel, nor does it expand the film to exotic new locales (I mean, Rome, but you know, seen it), but it does vastly exceed the first John Wick. The part of these films that I love is the world that the creators are building on the sides of the main story. This is a world of assassins and a world of their strange, strict rules. And as much as John Wick is the main character of this story, he is a small cog in a larger machine, and the movie acknowledges this, never thinking that in the overall world-building that John Wick is anything more than a very good assassin that everyone is scared of. It’s great, instead of Wick being the Chosen One, or looking to assassinate the king of the world or whatever, he’s just a guy, existing in the slowly expanding world of, uh, Assassin Town, trying to get his revenge. It works because Stahleski and his crew can slowly roll-out the new aspects of this fascinating world – Laurence Fishburne as a bum-king; an Italian Continental hotel; the presence of blood markers and divided factions ruled over by what I’m hoping are super-assassins. The focus is always on John Wick’s revenge, and the rest of the story unfolds as he progresses, shooting Euro-trash and taking names. As John Laird put it, “the film doesn’t get bigger than the first one, it gets wider,” ballooning out at the perfect pace to keep you interested in the shooting, while not losing track of the bigger picture. And when the film ends on a cliffhanger, it’s an earned one. There’s no silly bumper with a new character, no twist, no curveball – just a conclusion of this film’s story, with a hint of what’s to come looming in the foreground. John Wick: Chapter 3, I’m waiting for you.
One Last Thought:
This might be the worst acting Keanu Reeves has done in his life. Every line he utters (which is maybe 25 in total) feels like he’s just trying to remember what he’s supposed to say next. That said, Reeves has been a bad actor for so long that his unnatural delivery and inability to control his facial muscles is now not only part of the package, but a part of the characters he’s given. John Wick is perfect for him – an awkward, nearly mute man with a penchant for shooting people.
