John Wick is forced out of retirement by a former associate looking to seize control of a shadowy international assassins’ guild. Bound by a blood oath to aid him, Wick travels to Rome and does b...
WHAT I LIKED: Everyone talks about how stylish the John Wicks movies are; beautiful lightning, sadistic, dance-like choreography and great music. That certainly creates a degree of cinematic, in-the-moment atmosphere to be hooked by, but the thing that actually makes this film somewhat engaging is the mystery of the world.
It's a strange, futuristic incarnation of New York with so many rules - a whole load of assasins who go round killing for money, a "High Table," who set the rules and issue death warrants, and various safe places and honour debt systems to be paid. That's fascinating because the origin or reasoning behind it is never explained, it's just a very well-realised, thoroughly unjust dystopia full of money, suits and guns that we long to find out more about, and the second film certainly begins to pick away at it. How did the world get here? What does it mean for ordinary people? We have no idea, but the glimpses we get are titilating for sure.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The characters are extremely one-dimensional, and the performances - or, more accurately, the dialogue - that brings them to life is so unbelievably grandstanding. Sure, the reveals about the world are made mysteriously, but they're delivered with lines like "you stabbed the devil in the back and forced him back into the life that he had just left," or "you incinerated the priest's temple." That means you can't really invest in them as people; something worsened by the fact that Wick's motivations are far more thinly-drawn than in the first film.
VERDICT: 'John Wick: Chapter 2,' is a very stylish action film with a mysterious world that keeps you guessing, and a bunch of paper-thin characters within it to stop you truly engaging.
