John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Retired? John Wick? Surely not?

He’s back, the ‘Boogeyman-Assasain’ is back. Wick intends to begin his quiet life in his beautiful house surrounded by nature, with his new pal… ‘Dog’ (original, nice one John) when this is quickly ruined by an Italian gangster who turns up at his door and forces him to tie up loose ends when he presents him with a gold marker. He is very briefly reluctant until his house gets torched, and he realises he must do as he’s told, should he want to live.

The film begins with 5 minutes of aggressive car sounds, a big fight, and a summary of what the last film was about by one of the first characters we see on screen. At this point you really do think, right okay, this is a John Wick film and the action is going to be immense, I’m excited.

Unfortunately, this is not completely the case throughout this film. Although the story itself seems to be a solid storyline upon reading it, when watching it, the importance behind it seems to get lost somewhere, and ends up just being ‘another action film’, and once he has completed the task he set out to do (very early on, I might add), you wonder what he’s going to get up to in the next 100 minutes. This story seemed to be – as expected for a second chapter, an extension on the first film, which, don’t get me wrong, is a beautiful way to tackle a sequel, however, this film was 2 hours 2 minutes and my god, in my opinion, those 122 minutes felt like days. I am not saying this film was all bad though, of course. We begin to get some new insights in Wick himself and the life he led before his final job in the last film, granted it’s not necessarily brand new information but additions and extensions to the world that been created. There’s a great scene just as he arrives in Rome which shows him preparing for his big job, his tailor, his weapons expert and his location intel all received gold coins and all welcome him with a high sense of respect and anticipation. It really solidifies just how big a deal John Wick is and far this universe expands.

The techniques used for this film mirrored those used in the first film significantly, such as the use of subtitles in different fonts to highlight certain phrases, and like it did in the first film, this worked well, and fitted with the film perfectly. Similarly, the soundtrack still fitted wonderfully, but however, in some parts I’m pretty sure they used exactly the same music, and the Killing Strangers intro seemed to still be thoroughly used during transition periods accompanying a long shot of the city or specific place we were going to next. Again, keeping the films very similar, though not so much a problem that it should be changed. It worked, it was fine.
The lighting used in this film, once again… (You guessed it) the same. John Wick was a very dark film, John Wick 2, well they just forgot about lighting all together in some parts, and suited these scenes well, however, certain scenes seemed to drag on for a little bit too long in this chapter, possibly making it feel a lot darker than it probably was.

The cast, is mostly the same in this film. I mean we had a couple of new appearances such as Ruby Rose, and Ricardo Scamarcio but overall, the ones that stood out for us – were the ones who we’ve seen before. I’m obviously going to stop off to mention the great fella that is – Keanu Reeves. Personally, he was the only thing about this film I cared about. I adore Keanu Reeves, and he is always an actor that plays his character and isn’t just Keanu Reeves in every production. I am upset to say, he just wasn’t given dialogue in this film. I can’t explain why they decided that this was the best idea, but they decided it! When Keanu did have dialogue they gave him corny, predictable John Wick come backs that we have all heard before, that just didn’t benefit the film or the story in any way, and you know what… he might as well have said nothing because he is just so impressive, that he just didn’t need a good script to assist his acting. The fight scenes he was involved in were believable, and incredible, and you would begin to fear, not only this character but the person portraying him. He could make you believe that John Wick was real. Although some of the scenes were long, they were well planned out and there should certainly be some kind of award available for whoever choreographed these (there probably is, please excuse my ignorance)
Anyway, 11/10, Keanu.

Ruby Rose’s character… one word for her, why? Why did they feel it was necessary to get another completely unnecessary female character involved? She was the kind of character that required an eye-roll whenever they came on, and this eye rolling doubles in two separate scenes such as, when she one – randomly groped Keanu Reeves, to the point of even his face presented some concern. Then secondly, when she was reaching to get her gun, and we got a sweet little close up shot of her ass. The reaction in my head was ‘great, here we go’.  Scenes that just weren’t needed.
In order to emphasise further how truly, truly pointless she was, I have to explain that she did not speak. She didn’t say a single word throughout. This character spoke with sign language, yet understood John when he spoke to her, and grunted during a fight scene. Can someone please explain the no speaking here?
Despite the eye rolling though, I must admit, it was yet again great to see a male vs. female fight, this scene was admittedly not as good as the similar fight that was had in John Wick, but it was entertaining all the same.

John Wick: Chapter 2 was not what I expected, but at the same time, seriously was. I went into it believing they would reproduce the first one, but asking myself surely they won’t?! They did, and for that reason, I was not impressed.
Athena is much more generous than me, giving it a 5.5/10, for me I don't even want to give it a 5.

4.5/10. Sorry John Wick: Chapter 2, you didn’t impress.