John Wick: Chapter 2

I got this as a Christmas gift, and have been waiting to watch it until, I got through all those shitty movies on Netflix I was marginally interested in, I guess. There are probably some SPOILERS for this movie that came out over a year ago, so consider this your warning.

I figured John would have to deal with the friend or relative of Viggo's, out for revenge. The movie instead dispenses with that quickly. John's problem is still related to his re-entering his old world, but it's comes from old business. And John finds himself in a situation where his only hope of peace seems to be more killing. But each action only serves to make the bullseye on his back larger. The rules and checks that govern this peculiar world of hotels, armorers, and so on, don't have much give to them, and they don't really serve John much at all.

The action sequences are still fun, even if several of them remind me of the shootout in the night club from the first movie, with John steadily mowing through generic cannon fodder. It looks good, and there's an excellent flow to those scenes, but it might start to seem familiar after a while. The movie adapts to this by using some different settings, like catacombs, or a mirrored art exhibit. I thought they'd use the old "you can't tell from the reflections where anyone is" bit a lot, but they were fairly restrained.

It also helps that the movie adds some interesting touches with other characters. Riccardo Scamarcio as Santino D'Antonio has this delightful combination of threatening, smugness, and faux-innocence. So he'll go from making a threat, to protesting he really has no choice, to telling John he better just accept it. All in all, it makes him an imminently hateable antagonist.

Laurence Fishburne as the Bowery King, with his army of homeless soldiers (or people dressing up like they're homeless). Common playing the failed bodyguard out for revenge. He and Keanu get a couple of good, extended fight scenes, including one where they casually take potshots at each other with silenced pistols amidst an oblivious crowd. That was one of a couple of funny bits the movie has, actually. Ruby Rose plays Santino's top gun, who speaks only in sign language, and is pretty effective with her facial expressions and gestures.

Everybody in the movie has their own sense of style, and it all works really well.

I especially like the end of the movie, after John has made his vow that he will kill anyone who comes after him. He'll kill them all. But after that, when he was doing a limping variant of the slow badass walk, you can see it begin to sink in what "all" really entails. The threat can come from anyone, any angle, and all his traditional resources are now inaccessible. Good luck in the third film, John.