John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

IMDB Rating 8.5/10

After returning to the criminal underworld to repay a debt, John Wick discovers that a large bounty has been put on his life.

Director: Chad Stahelski

Writers: Derek Kolstad, Derek Kolstad (based on characters created by)

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ian McShane

R | 2h 2min | Action, Crime, Thriller

IMDB link Here

Movie Rating ★★★☆☆  

Keanu Reeves's trigger-happy sequel gets the job done  

 The excellent John Wick resurrected Keanu Reeves, the rain-soaked B-movie, and everything in its cross-hairs, basically, except for the poor pup whose casual slaughter sent the title character over the edge. A sequel is entirely welcome, and Chapter 2 does its job entirely ably, without exactly doing much overtime.

All the snappiest parts of the film are the bits where Wick can hardly move for the fellow hitmen crawling all over him. Whatever day jobs this secret society may be pursuing, their phones ping with bounty updates, and the game is on. But the rules remain clear: when inside the Continental Hotel – the killers’ boutique hotel owned by Winston (Ian McShane) – not a drop of blood is to be spilled, or the wrath of the organisation will descend upon you. Just ask Adrianne Palicki’s character from the last one. Via medium.

Full marks to Peter Serafinowicz, who has one hilarious scene as a kind of suits-you-sir, Savile Row arms dealer. And there’s a strong showing from Common, who tries to take Wick down in a highly entertaining mid-film struggle with a witty, winking punchline.

Scamarcio, though, is a pale imitation of Michael Nyqvist’s original nemesis, and his mute goon Ares (Ruby Rose), despite having her moments, isn’t quite the Famke-Janssen-in-GoldenEye hoot she might have been. A draggy lull arrives when Wick, running out of safe-houses, checks in with a big cheese called the Bowery King, who keeps birds up on a rooftop, surely knows Forest Whitaker’s character from Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and has a whopping arsenal at his disposal.

Thankfully, through all the script’s uneven chicanes, returning director Chad Stahelski – Brandon Lee’s stunt double after his fatal accident on the Crow set – fulfils the action end of the deal with wicked muscle and flair. A car chase at the beginning is an eye-popping explosion of neons on wet tarmac, as abstractly exhilarating as the best of Bourne.

Read full review at The telegraph

Keanu Reeves reunites with ‘Matrix’ co-star Laurence Fishburne in this action-packed underworld sequel.  

A surprise hit when it propelled Keanu Reeves’ action career back into high gear, 2014’s John Wick concluded with more than enough momentum for a sequel, or even several. The success of John Wick: Chapter 2 will go a long way toward demonstrating whether the franchise can distinguish itself from the competition in that rarefied realm, although it appears to have a good chance of topping its predecessor's opening weekend haul of nearly $14.5 million.

Reeves is back in fine form, confirming how indispensable he is to the franchise with his lithe physicality, no-nonsense demeanor and impressive skill set, as he again performs many of his own driving and martial arts stunts. Returning screenwriter Derek Kolstad reaffirms the appealing ingenuity of his highly memorable lead character, whose clear motivations for underworld score-settling are both relatable and rootable. Once again, Reeves does not disappoint, fully inhabiting Wick by channeling his rage over life’s injustices into an intensely focused performance.

This time around, Kolstad miscues some key plot developments, however, principally by neglecting to center the action on Wick’s antagonist D’Antonio from the outset and initially focusing on the logistical intricacies of Wick’s assassination assignment instead. By the midpoint, though, more formidable adversaries have emerged, diluting the main conflict further.

In fact, a third chapter is already in the planning stages, perhaps for when director Chad Stahelski completes the Highlander reboot, which should benefit substantially from his John Wick expertise. Going solo on the second installment (with previous co-director David Leitch as an executive producer), Stahelski doubles up on the stunts and firepower. The film’s frenetic opening car chase through night-lit Manhattan streets, followed by a near demolition derby scene as Wick targets the Russian mob’s vehicle fleet by using the Mustang as a kinetic weapon, rank respectably with almost anything that the Fast and Furious franchise can muster.

Cinematographer Dan Laustsen bathes the frequently low-light action scenes in pools of indigo and ultraviolet to achieve a suitable underworld vibe, allowing editor Evan Schiff to step in and amp up the pacing with stylishly energetic cutting.

Read full review at hollywood reporter

Movie Rating ★★★☆  

Stylish, hyperviolent, and almost irrationally satisfying.  

John Wick, as fans of the eponymous 2014 hit about a ruthlessly efficient assassin already know, once killed three people in a bar, using only a pencil. That legend gets repeated in the new, deliciously stylish and hyperviolent sequel to the live-action comic book, “John Wick: Chapter 2” — but with a twist. If anything, the legend has probably been “watered down” from reality, as one bad guy ruefully notes. Later, the title character, played by a brooding, laconic Keanu Reeves, proves his lethal facility with that same writing implement, in a scene that is sublimely silly, jaw-droppingly brutal and irrationally satisfying.

There was something compulsively watchable about the first “Wick,” which had a mesmerizing intensity — at once noirish and cartoonish — despite the superficial monotony of its plot: a supremely single-minded revenge mission by a retired hit man (Reeves) against the Russian mobster (Alfie Allen) who had killed his dog and stolen his beloved 1969 Ford Mustang. As “Chapter 2” opens, John has a new pup, but his car is still missing. In the first 15 minutes, he gets it back, immediately proceeding to trash it in the process of killing a parade of goons, with the same kind of creativity demonstrated by his flair for the Faber-Castell No. 2.

It’s a small, artificial world — on one level, it can be read as a metaphor for the precariousness of life — but it’s a fun-filled one, too. It isn’t easy to explain the appeal of the “John Wick” movies, and they are inarguably not for every taste, but there is a purity to them that transcends their barbarity and has something to do with the central character.

Why does he steal back his own car, for instance, only to total it in his effort to get away? For John Wick, a man who otherwise seems amoral, it’s the principle of the thing. Like the movie itself, his goals may not be lofty, but his work ethic — an uncompromising determination and attention to detail — is admirable.

Read full review at The washington post

Movie Rating ★★★☆  

'John Wick 2' is an extravagantly violent good time  

Before you buy a ticket to see "John Wick: Chapter 2 ," the improbably fun sequel to the implausibly good "John Wick," you might want to ask yourself how much tolerance you have for gun shots to the head, because there are a lot of those in "John Wick: Chapter 2." More than you might think possible in a single movie. Is it gratuitous? Yes. Do all those people deserve to die? Probably not. But for our bearded boogeyman, who one character calls a priest and the devil in a single sentence, a shot to the head and one to the chest gets the job done quickly and efficiently. Why make things overly complicated?

True to its name, "Chapter 2" literally picks up where the first left off

The film is jam-packed with amazing cameos and supporting players, from Franco Nero as the manager of the Rome branch of The Continental and Common as a fellow assassin with a grudge, to Laurence Fishburne as the Bowery King. Ruby Rose is an amusing standout, too, as a sultry, mute bodyguard who communicates in sign language. There are also some returning players, like Lance Reddick as the Continental's concierge and Ian McShane as the New York Continental manager as well as a handful of others.

And Reeves is in top form as the perpetually unruffled John Wick. It's a role that is tailor-made for his low-key intensity and one that will fit him for years to come.

Both "John Wick" films are sendups of the tasteless excess of B-action pics and all-out celebrations of their vulgarity. "Chapter 2" is the best one could hope for in an action sequel, and it doesn't even have the "killed the puppy" gimmick on its side. The only real question is when we'll get the gift of a "Chapter 3."

Read full review at dailymail

Movie Rating ★★☆ ☆ ☆   

Keanu Reeves is back as the superassassin and dog lover  

John Wick: Chapter 2," the sequel least likely to suggest anything with actual chapters or anything to read, stars Keanu Reeves in the role of Liam Neeson. The solid autumn 2014 success of "John Wick" proved there was space in the universe for a new Neeson, a more youthful exemplar of steely vengeance.

Reeves has headlined plenty of action movies in his career. Now in his early 50s, the actor's in his prime nonverbal grieving phase. It doesn't matter that "John Wick 2" isn't very good, or that it's a step down from the first "John Wick," which played its killing games with more wit. The fans cannot complain about the body count. The semiretired superassassin killed 77 adversaries last time around. The numbers are similar here.

In "Wick: The First One," director Chad Stahelski and screenwriter Derek Kohlstad waited nearly 15 minutes for the violence to begin, and for one of Wick's haters to kill his dog. I will happily spoil it for you: The pup Wick adopted at the end of the first movie is not killed in the sequel. Nor does he do any killing. He's a pacifist surrounded by corpses — the Desmond Doss of dogs. In a nod to Sergio Leone's Clint Eastwood Westerns, he is also the Dog with No Name. Early in "Wick 2" someone asks: "Does he have a name?" And Wick says: "No." Yet the way Reeves, brow furrowed and voice a whispery rumble, pauses before his line, it appears as if the actor has forgotten the dog's name. Ruh-roh! So he just says no.

"John Wick 2" stages its gun-fu melees sleekly and sometimes well, from the catacombs of Rome to the subway platforms of New York City. The movie's most intriguing grudge match has Wick squaring off against the bodyguard/associate of the murdered Italian sister.

Who am I kidding? A lot more, probably. As our real world grows stranger and more brutal by the day, a movie selling weightless ultraviolence, plus nice suits and Keanu Reeves, is like a deep-tissue massage for our jaded, fearful souls.

Read full review at chicagotribune

A Roman Holiday With Shots Not Sparks  

They just couldn’t leave it alone. The original “John Wick,” about an über assassin who’s reluctantly drawn out of retirement, was a near perfect synergy of simple premise and intricate movement — an action movie that danced. But the lightness and winking quality that softened the slaughter are less evident in “John Wick: Chapter 2,” an altogether more solemn affair weighed down by the philosophy that more is always more.

The plot matters only inasmuch as it allows the returning director, Chad Stahelski, to stage his spectacular fight sequences in various stunning Roman locations, where they unfold with an almost erotic brutality. In this movie, the camera contemplates weaponry with more lip-licking awe than is ever afforded Ms. Gerini’s curves.

John might remind you of James Bond, but he has no interest in the honeys. Carnage is his release, and the camera plays along, gazing up at his aspirational buttocks as he slides a knife from his back pocket, and circling his twisting torso with rapt attention. A brilliantly stylized foreplay sequence is constructed around assassin-related paraphernalia, and both Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne — as the respective heads of separate killing squads — remind us of madams, pimping death across continents.

Some of this world-building is fun, and almost all of it is dazzling, but the emotional sterility of John’s life will burden a franchise. At some point, he’ll have to care about more than his dog.

Read  full review at New york times

Movie Rating ★★★ ☆ ☆    

The Keanuverse is undergoing expansion 

Imagine if “The Matrix Reloaded” had actually delivered on its promise to build on Keanu Reeves’s trippy world from the opening installment. Picture a sequel that pulled us even further down the rabbit hole rather than giving us a widened landscape that felt dispiritingly like warmed-over Syfy programming.

It might not be “Matrix” territory, exactly, but with “John Wick: Chapter 2,” genre fans finally get the sort of expanded Keanuverse they were craving. For audiences with an extremely high tolerance for brutally fetishized shootouts and bloodletting, this continuation of Reeves’s potential-filled reluctant hit man saga is electrifying, both visually and in its cracked narrative ambitions. Heck, Laurence Fishburne even gets in on the insanity for old times’ sake.

Ian McShane is back as the bemused proprietor of Manhattan’s only (we’ll assume?) hit man hotel. But returning director Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad definitely have a broader vision to lay on us — and while this means largely abandoning the first film’s solid pathos, we’re OK with the tradeoff. Welcome to the hotel’s elegant satellite in Rome, complete with weapons sommelier. Welcome to a worldwide web of assassins where everyone from Common’s iceman to a Lincoln Center busker targets Wick, and where kill orders are relayed through an old Ma Bell office hooked on tattoo culture. And welcome to the turf of the Bowery King (Fishburne), who’s got his own who-knew network of lethal operatives.

What also keeps surprising us is just how outrageously far Reeves and Stahelski, his onetime stunt double, are willing to push the movie’s violence. There’s a hint of Peckinpah in their commitment to simulated shootings and stabbings as spattery ballet. We’d call Stahelski desensitized, but his action direction is far too fresh to be coming from someone not giving it much thought. And we’d call ourselves desensitized, but we’re too appreciative that the filmmakers include so many crackpot elements to stress the “play” in gunplay.

Read full review at Boston globe