Movie Review: If “John Wick: Chapter Two” is any indication of what a potential franchise might hold, I say bring on the sequels.
It should go without saying that the second installment in the soon-to-be-ubiquitous “John Wick” film franchise bears no resemblance to what you or I consider reality. In the world of John Wick, men dress in finely tailored suits and brandish automatic weapons — that is, when they’re not dropping tough-guy pulp poetry over glasses of aged liquor. In many cases, the women — who are every bit as stylishly adorned — reveal themselves to be even deadlier than their male counterparts.
The world of “John Wick” is one where highly-skilled assassins convene in secret within the confines of lavishly decorated vintage hotels, where debts are settled in blood oaths and million-dollar contracts and where there is no quicker way to get to the point of a conversation than a close-quarters gunfight. We are talking about a hyper-sensual alternate reality, one where the cars are just a little faster than usual, the neon lights shine just a little bit brighter and there is no one element more terrifying than an avenging angel out to redress the cruel death of his dog.
The first “John Wick” had no business being good, let alone great. That film should have been nothing more than a bargain-bin time waster starring Keanu Reeves in the ripe twilight of his middle age, playing a taciturn contract killer who lays waste to an entire syndicate of underground baddies when some Russians murder his beloved pooch. There was no reason that the first “Wick” should have been such a resounding classic with the action movie crowd: the premise wasn’t novel, Reeves hadn’t been great onscreen in years. Even the title almost sounded like that of a generic romantic comedy. And yet, against all odds, “John Wick” was a smashing success: a marriage of shameless 90’s action movie thrills with borderline-abstract fight choreography and Reeves’ characteristically stoic screen presence. When John Wick rode off into the proverbial sunset and took his guns with him at the end of the first film, it was hard not to feel like a sequel was just around the corner.
And lo and behold, “John Wick: Chapter Two” is now upon us. And it pleases me to report that “Chapter Two” is a major improvement over the first film in almost every conceivable way, enhancing what worked about the original while adding layers of genuinely intriguing world-building and some refreshing, often shockingly violent humor to the proceedings. Thankfully, director Chad Stahelski, who also directed the first “Wick” along with David Leitch, is not trying to re-write the language of the modern action movie here, nor is he ditching the sure-thing original formula from the first “John Wick”. To do that would just be… well, wrong.
It’s easy to play spot-the-influence here — there are the kinetic bullet ballets and blood-speckled melodrama of John Woo, the digital impressionism of later Michael Mann, the frenzy of the late, great Tony Scott, the luxuriant fetishization of secret societies that exists in both the early and later James Bond films — but why would anybody want to do a thing like that? “John Wick” is not created for the purposes of intellectual assessment. It is not created so that we can pick apart its various parts and dissect it like some lab experiment. The “John Wick” films, apart from being an obvious and lucrative cash cow, exist with one concrete goal in mind: total and utter action movie nirvana…. to utterly kick your ass, all up and down the aisles of the movie theater.
If you’re like me, and you grew up binging on trash classics of mid-90’s action cinema like John Woo’s “Face/Off” and “Con Air,” “John Wick: Chapter Two” is going to be like two hours of shooting a syringe full of magic pixie dust straight into your cinema-loving brain. It’s spectacularly dumb and executed pretty much without any flaws, anchored by Reeves’ fantastic turn and some of the most marvelously imagined action sequences since the second “Raid” movie. Students of the shoot-‘em-up, brace yourselves: “John Wick: Chapter Two” is your ticket to movie paradise.
One of the most appealing elements of the “John Wick” franchise is how the creators seem to balance the elegant solemnity of our namesake hitman’s shadowy private life with the kind of cuttingly funny humor that can enliven the action films we think of as classics. This dichotomy is represented even in Reeves’ performance, which masterfully tows the line between self-serious and self-aware, sublime and ridiculous, disarmingly clever and then amazingly stupid.
“John Wick: Chapter Two” is all of these things as well, though it’s also the rare action movie sequel that doesn’t feel burdened by bloat. If anything, “Chapter Two” manages to elucidate on many of the first film’s more intriguing subplots, mainly the Continental Hotel — that elite institution of classy contract killers who settle their feuds with arcane “markers” that look like old Roman coins — as well as Wick’s own personal backstory. And yet, somehow, the film has more of everything than its predecessor, and yet somehow feels less cumbersome. Add some reliably great character actors to the mix (Ian McShane, Lance Reddick and Laurence Fishburne, just to name a few), not to mention one of the most nerve-frying openings to be seen in a major release this year and you’ve got what very well could be one of the best pure action movies of 2017.
I won’t spoil that opening for you, suffice to say the reaction shots of Peter Stormare’s greasy bad guy that punctuate the almost nonstop carnage had the audience I saw the movie with gasping with laughter. This breathless, rain-soaked intro throws down the gauntlet and establishes just what kind of movie we’re in for: one where plot and logic take a backseat to pure movement. Of course, the second “Wick” does not find Mr. Reeves seeking to mete out the deaths of those who killed his canine companion — and seriously, what’s a better way to engender sympathy for a ruthless killer then by giving him an adorable puppy friend and then killing it? All you really need to know — and I won’t say more, because the fans of these movies generally like to go in knowing as little as possible, even when nothing really new or novel is happening — is that early in the film, an attempt is made on Wick’s life by someone who has deep ties to the Continental. This sets Wick off on what Harvey Keitel’s character in “Reservoir Dogs” would call “a damn kill-crazy rampage,” which is really what us “Wick” fans came to see.
All this results in some set pieces that will have your jaw on the floor, with your tongue rolling out onto the floor like Jim Carrey’s green-faced goon in “The Mask”. Consider the breathtaking passage where Wick dodges his assailants through the crowded, contained chaos of an EDM show that appears to be taking place amidst some old Roman-style ruins. Or how about the scene where Wick squares off with a fellow assassin played by rapper Common, where they’re sniping at each other across a narrow subway tunnel in a manner that makes them seem like kids playing “shootout” with their toy pistols long after mom’s told them to go to their room? And I haven’t even mentioned the dizzying finale, which sees Wick squaring off against the Big Bad Boss, video-game style, in a hall of mirrors that looks like it was lit like James Turrell.
I love that the “John Wick” universe feels so of a piece that even when Wick is visited by the authorities, it’s the same hangdog cop (Thomas Sadoski of “The Newsroom”) who gave him the third degree in the first film. There’s a few self-consciously “big” moments where characters from the first film ask John what he’s doing out of retirement, though I never found that these joyous asides felt like fan service of any kind. Like its perfectly dressed, impossibly badass central character, “John Wick” coasts on sheer charisma much of the time, and it gets the job done with efficiency and brutality to spare. The film, in its heedless zeal, almost like a musical — albeit, one where the song and dance numbers are replaced by exquisite gun-fu ballets that are as blistering in their intensity as anything since the glory days of “The Killer” and “A Better Tomorrow”. If the mention of those movies causes your heart to skip a beat, “John Wick: Chapter Two” will act as medicine for your cinematic central nervous system.
A movie like this almost resists critical analysis because while it’s true that the film essentially recycles the plot of the original and borrows liberally from the action movie greats, the sensation that it emanates is all too rare in movies these days. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve had as much fun at a big Hollywood blockbuster since “Guardians of the Galaxy (I thought about considering J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” in this regard, though that movie is more grave and commanding whereas “John Wick” is a shot of delirious pop pleasure). There is an economy and sense of utility in these films that is such a welcome shot of indulgence after the self-serious noodling of so much comparatively less focused action cinema, I cannot overstate my recommendation of this movie on its own terms. It’s the rare brainless Hollywood thriller where an impending franchise feels more like an awesome harbinger of things to come than a dreary promise. All hail John Wick: the new prince of action cinema. Grade: A-.
