John Wick: Chapter 2

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

90% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 122 reviews)

Runtime: 122 minutes

Directed by: Chad Stahelski

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ian McShane, Common, Lance Reddick

From: Summit Entertainment

Boy was I let down by this movie. I am disappointed to say this but I can't lie to you guys. I explain why below:

I hate having to rate the movie this way, but I have to be honest here. It reminds me of The Raid and The Raid 2. I need to watch the first Raid again so I can give it a proper review but both that and John Wick are simple yet effective, both awesome action films with tremendous beats and it's not the point that the story is pared down to the bone in order to focus on basic themes that everyone can understand. Both this movie and The Raid 2 complicate matters by having more complex stories which I unfortunately did not enjoy at all. Raid 2 was a bad crime Asian crime drama which paled in comparison to all the great tales to come from that part of the world and Chapter 2, I won't spoil this brand new movie except to say that while the first Wick was greatly enjoyable and a lot of fun, to me this movie was hardly any fun at all and instead was not only preposterous and far-fetched, but not entertaining. A massive disappointment, considering that in both movies they have tremendous action scenes; the ones in Chapter 2 are creative, are usually a lot of fun and are typically shot cleanly.

I won't spoil what the plot is; at least for me I went into the movie not knowing what it was about except that Wick was out of retirement again and the co-stars were Common and Ruby Rose. I'll leave it at that in case other people are in the same boat as me. I saw this movie on a giant screen and I couldn't turn down that opportunity so that is why I saw this late last night when I was thinking beforehand that I'd watch this tonight. As the movie looks and sounds real good, it was a wise move on my part... shame the plot was no fun for me... not to mention it wasn't told well to boot. I groaned and sighed more often than I was expecting.

I can't fault Keanu for his performance or his martial arts skills. Wick is still a badass who causes some to soil their pants at the mere mention of him. As I did not follow the movie beforehand I was pleasantly surprised to see some old action movie veterans appear; that was a positive. I am sure everyone will dig the action beats; it's more up in the air what people will think of the story being told in this Chapter, or its ending. Needless to say I did not care for the ending either or what it was suggesting. This movie has enough to where I can technically rate it as “fine” but as I expected something to blow my socks off, I am crestfallen that this only gets 3 stars from me.