John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) A (mildly) belated review

Back in 2014 and after a series of critical and box office duds, Keanu Reeves’ star appeared to be on the wane.  The actor himself noted that after the failure of 2008’s The Day The Earth Stood Still remake, he was no longer viewed as a very in demand actor.

But things got considerably brighter for Mr. Reeves when, in 2014, he starred in the quirky, action-filled John Wick.

The film concerned a proverbial cliched bad ass hit man who had retired.  When we first meet Mr. Wick, he’s morose.  His wife, we find, has died of cancer but not before leaving him a puppy.  One day, while going out, his flashy 1969 Mustang captures the eyes of some youthful thugs and they want to buy the car.  Wick says no and, later that day, they assault his house, beat him up, kill his puppy, and steal his car.

The rest of the movie concerns Mr. Wick getting back at the ones who wronged him, who turned out to be the son of a powerful Russian mobster Mr. Wick has worked with before.

John Wick, in my opinion, was a good -if not quite great- action film filled with great stunts and at times brutal gun play.  Keanu Reeves was quite good as the driven hit man who seeks justice.  There were other interesting touches in the film, including a sense of some kind of hit man/gangster order, including a “safe haven” hotel in the middle of New York where the dregs of society can stay at and be safe and woe be it to anyone who creates any chaos in this safe haven.

As I said, I liked the film.  In my original review of it (you can read it here), I said the following:

(John Wick) builds on and on, reaching its climax and conclusion and leaving at least me hoping to see more.

As the saying goes, beware of what you wish for.

Earlier this year John Wick: Chapter 2 was released to generally good reviews and positive fan reaction.  At this moment and on this day, Rottentomatoes.com has the film scoring a damn good 89% positive among critics and a near equal 87% positive among audiences.  This score, by the way, is slightly higher than the 85% positive among critics and 80% positive among audiences for the original John Wick.

And like my reaction versus everyone’s else to Guardians of the Galaxy, I can’t help but shake my damn head.

John Wick 2 is more… and more… and more of the same.

And after about a half hour of seeing what to my eyes was essentially the same gunfight pattern again and again (close quarter combat, shooting people in the head, flipping and fightin’, etc.), I was bored.

To tears.

The plot this time around concerns a marker mobster Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio being at best only an “ok” slimeball) has on John Wick.  Said marker entitles Santino to call in a favor from Wick and, while he refuses at first to do so, because of the hit man rules, Wick soon realizes he has to.

Them’s the breaks.

The favor Santino asks?  He wants his sister killed.  Seems his father recently passed away and willed her his power and seat at the prestigious “Table of 12”, a worldwide mobster power.  Santino wants her out of the way so he can rule the clan and take that seat.

So after Wick realizes he has to do the job he heads to Italy and, eventually, gets down to business.  He is then (surprise!) betrayed and gunfire, fights, CGI blood, close quarter shootouts, flips, punches, stabbings, etc. etc. yawn etc. etc. occur.  Over and over and over and over again.

I honestly can’t think of another more action filled movie that bored me as much as this one did.

And I’m even more bewildered, as I was with the extremely positive reaction to Guardians of the Galaxy, as to why my opinion of this film is so at odds with the “mainstream”.

So for me, John Wick: Chapter 2 was a near total bust and, given I liked the first film, a big shame.  However, given how much others seemed to like the film versus me, perhaps you should take my opinion with a proverbial grain of salt… it looks like I’m in the minority here.

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