Seeing yourself on video takes the cool-crushing, cringe-inducing effect of hearing the sound of your own voice recorded to the next power. “Great, not only do I sound like an idiot, I look like one, too.” Each precious moment captured in unforgiving high-def adds to the running list of things we realize we look more ridiculous doing than previously realized: dancing, kissing, jumping, climbing out of a swimming pool, eating, walking, fighting. Thank all things holy we’re trapped in our own head and not forced to endure the unending indignity of witnessing our monstrous lack of grace from third-person perspective at all the times. This self-realization makes it even more confounding when one’s gaze comes to Keanu Reeves, the 52-year-old (!) actor who seems to look excellent doing just about anything. Whoa is he.
In John Wick: Chapter 2, the “anything” Keanu does well (and looks good doing) is nearly everything imaginable to take out faceless suited baddies in meticulously choreographed fight scenes. Though, calling them fight scenes denies John Wick credit, as every fight with Reeves' Wick is really more of a killing spree showcasing his exceptionally inventive execution skills.
In thinking about what I loved about the first John Wick while wading through the second’s slower start, I wondered if there was something wrong with our world that we might find ourselves cheering and laughing as Wick snaps necks and arms and puts bullets in the heads of some 70 or 80 people… then I saw John Wick clear a room with a pencil (as hinted at in the original). Shock and guffaw. Whatever the formula that makes audiences delight rather than recoil at displays of hyper-violence, John Wick — still — has it mastered.
There’s an art to making violence look so good and feel so thrilling. The artists here are stuntman/director Chad Stahelski and Reeves, who come so well prepared and seem so dedicated to making a "he could still kill more" bit of bad-ass-ery that it seems impossible for them to misfire.
If you’ve ever played a first-person shooter (and I suspect the chances of that are high if you’re fired up about seeing John Wick: Chapter 2) you know there’s a strange chemistry that’s hard to put your trigger finger on that makes the best shooters stand out from the rest. Graphics of guns and buckets of bullets alone don’t do the trick; there’s something about the feel that makes it deeply satisfying and visceral that gives you an adrenaline kick. That’s a feeling John Wick: Chapter 2 has down just as well as the original.
Staying true to its origins, John Wick:Chapter 2 never blinks away from the action. The unflinching eye of the camera is honed on Keanu for glorious long cuts as he rolls through highly choreographed obstacle courses of gunplay chaos, car crashes, and close-quarters combat with well-dressed goons.
Another key element that makes the feel of John Wick so thrilling is sound: the sounds of a muscle car engine rumbling to life, an Italian suit jacket whipping in the wind, the satisfying metallic crunch of a reload, the bass-filled boom of a shotgun blast, the crunch of breaking bones, the bite of broken glass beneath feet, or the labored breathing of battling brutes. As such, John Wick: Chapter 2 is best experienced as big and loud and possible.
Chapter 2's simple (though less emotionally driven) revenge premise is given legs by John Wick’s humor and almost whimsical world. Hitmen hotels are hallowed ground where killing is off limits, the world’s beggars are part of an underground network, and a silver marker with a bloody thumbprint serve as an assassin’s ultimate IOU. And, like the original, John Wick: Chapter 2 cuts the tension with some laughs that stick and typically serve to bolster the mythos of John Wick as the big, bad Boogeymen of killers for hire.
Action films are often not given the credit they deserve. Of course, their glamorized violence is an easy scapegoat for real-world atrocities, but it also often seems like low-hanging fruit. One might say, "It's easy — anyone could make an action movie,” just like "anyone could write a pop song" or "anyone could write a dumb people-pleasing sitcom" or "anyone could not screw up an omelet." Of course, if it were all that easy there would be more pop stars, fewer canceled series, fewer “scrambled” eggs, and more action movies as raucous and riveting as John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2.
If you liked John Wick you'll like John Wick: Chapter 2 — and the inevitable sequel that promises to raise the stakes another notch. While the sequel can't entirely live up to the first with its weaker revenge plot and higher audience expectations, if it's violence you seek, there's really no one who does it better than John Wick.
—Eric Pulsifer
In John Wick: Chapter 2, the “anything” Keanu does well (and looks good doing) is nearly everything imaginable to take out faceless suited baddies in meticulously choreographed fight scenes. Though, calling them fight scenes denies John Wick credit, as every fight with Reeves' Wick is really more of a killing spree showcasing his exceptionally inventive execution skills.
In thinking about what I loved about the first John Wick while wading through the second’s slower start, I wondered if there was something wrong with our world that we might find ourselves cheering and laughing as Wick snaps necks and arms and puts bullets in the heads of some 70 or 80 people… then I saw John Wick clear a room with a pencil (as hinted at in the original). Shock and guffaw. Whatever the formula that makes audiences delight rather than recoil at displays of hyper-violence, John Wick — still — has it mastered.
There’s an art to making violence look so good and feel so thrilling. The artists here are stuntman/director Chad Stahelski and Reeves, who come so well prepared and seem so dedicated to making a "he could still kill more" bit of bad-ass-ery that it seems impossible for them to misfire.
If you’ve ever played a first-person shooter (and I suspect the chances of that are high if you’re fired up about seeing John Wick: Chapter 2) you know there’s a strange chemistry that’s hard to put your trigger finger on that makes the best shooters stand out from the rest. Graphics of guns and buckets of bullets alone don’t do the trick; there’s something about the feel that makes it deeply satisfying and visceral that gives you an adrenaline kick. That’s a feeling John Wick: Chapter 2 has down just as well as the original.
Staying true to its origins, John Wick:Chapter 2 never blinks away from the action. The unflinching eye of the camera is honed on Keanu for glorious long cuts as he rolls through highly choreographed obstacle courses of gunplay chaos, car crashes, and close-quarters combat with well-dressed goons.
Another key element that makes the feel of John Wick so thrilling is sound: the sounds of a muscle car engine rumbling to life, an Italian suit jacket whipping in the wind, the satisfying metallic crunch of a reload, the bass-filled boom of a shotgun blast, the crunch of breaking bones, the bite of broken glass beneath feet, or the labored breathing of battling brutes. As such, John Wick: Chapter 2 is best experienced as big and loud and possible.
Chapter 2's simple (though less emotionally driven) revenge premise is given legs by John Wick’s humor and almost whimsical world. Hitmen hotels are hallowed ground where killing is off limits, the world’s beggars are part of an underground network, and a silver marker with a bloody thumbprint serve as an assassin’s ultimate IOU. And, like the original, John Wick: Chapter 2 cuts the tension with some laughs that stick and typically serve to bolster the mythos of John Wick as the big, bad Boogeymen of killers for hire.
Action films are often not given the credit they deserve. Of course, their glamorized violence is an easy scapegoat for real-world atrocities, but it also often seems like low-hanging fruit. One might say, "It's easy — anyone could make an action movie,” just like "anyone could write a pop song" or "anyone could write a dumb people-pleasing sitcom" or "anyone could not screw up an omelet." Of course, if it were all that easy there would be more pop stars, fewer canceled series, fewer “scrambled” eggs, and more action movies as raucous and riveting as John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2.
If you liked John Wick you'll like John Wick: Chapter 2 — and the inevitable sequel that promises to raise the stakes another notch. While the sequel can't entirely live up to the first with its weaker revenge plot and higher audience expectations, if it's violence you seek, there's really no one who does it better than John Wick.
—Eric Pulsifer
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