I've been meaning to post this for some time!
I saw John Wick 2: Chapter: The Second One on opening weekend. My reaction to it is...mixed. What made John Wick such a groundbreaking and great film? In an action scene dominated by Michael Bay, The Expendibles, and Fast Fifteen, JW1 was a breath of fresh air for American audiences, with clean and choreographed fighting scenes. But that alone isn't what made the film interesting. The plot is...basic, but what we ARE given is explored very well. The entire film is a rising action sequence, starting at his home invasion to stalking Iosef in the bathhouse, to the entire 5+ minute section at the red circle dance floor, to the church. We start off with Viggo telling his son that he has fucked up. John Wick is going to come kill him, and there is nothing we can do about it. The image of the bogeyman is told by Viggo, and John Wick fills the image perfectly. Every shootout raises the stakes even more; the whole film is a domino effect. Even when John Wick is fighting somebody one-on-one, it's still got clean choreography. Moral of the story: don't fuck with John Wick. You're not at his level.
Now you fucked up. You have fucked up now.
So here we are at JW2. While the first film is an action movie, it managed to weave in some of the coolest world ever. Assassins that operate in plain sight at hotels? Operating under a code? That's cool af. So I was hoping the second film would build on that lore, and it did, which is good. John and Winston have great chemistry together; you can tell they've got a great history. What is that history? We don't need to know it yet, because the world of John Wick is flexible and we can have that story told another time.
First scene: Viggo's brother is panicking because he still has John's car. "Why can't we just give it back?" some guy asks. "Because he's John Wick!!!! He'll kill us!!". "Why don't we kill him then?", the rebuttal. "BECAUSE HE'S JOHN WICK!!!!". So John appears, takes his car, and drives away. What do the henchmen do? They chase after him. Seems to me like John was perfectly fine with driving out. But no, he smashes up his car and drives back in. Time for revenge, I guess? And he kills all the other henchmen, goes up to the office, and offers peace to Viggo's brother. ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? What was the point of this whole sequence? Just go give us some action? I sure hope not.
So then we meet our villain, some kind of Italiano guy. He made a deal with John back in the last movie, so now John owes him. "Don't do this. I'm not that guy anymore," says John. So Santino leaves, and blows up John's house with a grenade launcher. So NOW that the Stakes Have Been Raised, John accepts the deal and will work for Santino. ??????????????? What did John think was going to happen? <-- that's a quote from a character in the movie about 3 minutes later, btw. Why is John being so dumb? It's not like things could get WORSE now. He could just move to Wyoming; if Santino needs him so much then he can't kill John. But at least we get to see Ares, Santino's bodyguard, the most badass character in the entire franchise. Speaks in sign language, has all the power in every room and knows it.
So then we go to Italy, do some assassin work, John walks through some tunnels and hides some guns there in case he has to shoot his way out. I wonder if he'll have to shoot his way out? Who cares. I'm excited for that scene, because it's gonna be amazingly choreographed. Turns out that John's target's bodyguard was Common, which makes him very mad that John has made him unemployed. So we get some nice scenes there, but just as John is escaping it turns out he was doubled crossed by Ares. And now, my troubles begin. We get to see John take down about sixty henchmen in the span of 90 seconds. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, headshot, headshot, headshot. There's no point. It's pitch black in these tunnels and everybody just instantly dies. Even in JW1 there was some mustache man that put up a fight in the red circle club. He has no name, but he's got to be the head of security, he's a miniboss. JW2 is just trash minions.
Well, Ares ran off, so we'll save that fight for later. Then Ares appears back at the hotel, where you can't fight each other. "See you soon," she signs. MAN I am looking forward to this fight! So John now has an assassin contract on him. He's got to fight through NYC with about a hundred assassins on his tail. Each assassin gets a few glimpses of what they do before they get the contract. One's a violin player, one's a trash bin cleaner, they all try and take down the bogeyman and they all fail. But then John has his fight with Common, and it sucks. After 5 minutes of pure adrenaline survival through NYC, he has a 30 second knife fight with the one assassin that can go toe-to-toe with him. We're left empty.
Then some more stuff happens and John chain kills another 60 people that apparently didn't take the "don't rush the bogeyman one at a time" class. Why is this in the film? Why not just fast forward? You're not missing anything. And then finally, the Ares fight. She's up against the wall, she's fighting for everything, she finally gets the chance to take on the bogeyman. How should I take him out? Well, the obvious answer is to hide right behind a door and try to stab John as he goes through. A gun? What's that? So now another 30 second knife fight. John whoops her ass easily. He had more trouble taking down one assassin in the first film than facing this character we've looked forward to the whole movie! He doesn't bring out any new moves, it's just the same CQC we've seen the whole rest of the film.
Whereas JW1 kept cascading and cascading, never letting John catch his breath, JW2's action looks more like a seismograph. 20 minutes where no bullets are fired, then INSTANTLY we mow through an entire private army worth of trash minions. Then we take a break for a little and THEN OUT OF NOWHERE LET'S KILL SOME MORE. You know that trick, where John shoots somebody in the head? Want to see it again? The action ramps up to the highest it gets right at the beginning and doesn't know how to do anything different. I watched this a second time with another fan and sitting through it was just such a slog at times. There's no tension during these fights. JW1 was a breath of fresh air that challenged other films to rise to its level. But I don't even think that JW2 rose to its level....if the only thing you up is the body count and ignore pacing, you undermine your own movie. I'd give JW1 an A or A+, but JW2 a B-. Is that REALLY the best you could do? Was this REALLY what JW2 deserved? I'm excited for JW3 but now I'm more apprehensive than I was before. If this is what the audiences want, is it what I want?
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/15/1...ction-fight-scenes-keanu-reeves-common-gun-fu
This article basically sums up everything. "At its best, the film is thrilling; at its worst, it’s rote". If the series goes down this path, I'm going to hate it. I'd much rather read a summary of the assassin culture on wikipedia then watch the red circle club on repeat for 3 hours. (I believe the red circle club from JW1 is one of the greatest action scenes in film in the 21st century.
If you don't know it, check it out, please).