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Keanu tools up for my running, jumping and shooting in genial, but perfunctory, sequel John Wick 2 |
Director: Chad Stahelski
Cast: Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Riccardo Scamarcio (Santino
D’Antonio), Ian McShane (Winston), Ruby Rose (Ares), Common (Cassian), Claudia
Gerini (Gianna D’Antonio), Lance Reddick (Charon), Laurence Fishburne (The
Bowery King), Franco Nero (Julius), Peter Stormare (Abram Tarasov)
It’s that age-old story: every time you think you’re out,
they drag you back in. Well that’s what we get with John Wick (Keanu Reeves).
Picking up where the last film stopped, Wick is approached by mafioso head
Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) who wants Wick to assassinate his
sister, who has been promoted to head of the business over him. Eventually
(after much pressure) Wick agrees – and quickly finds himself betrayed and on
the run.
The first John Wick
has a real charm about it, the sort of film you can really enjoy because
tonally it gets itself absolutely spot on. It’s a lot of action fun, it manages
not to take itself too seriously and it sets its hero up as someone very
sympathetic who only goes on a rampage of violence under extreme provocation.
The sequel attempts to double down on all of this and give us more of the same
– but not always to the same impact.
Part of the issue is that there just isn’t the same engaging
story at the heart of it. I totally understand John Wick in the first film, and
completely got what it was that he
was doing in the film – that essentially avenging his dog was about getting
revenge on those who had taken the only thing he had left from his relationship
with his wife. Here the lines are a lot more blurred – John basically saddles
up under extreme provocation and blackmail and then basically spends the film
killing people left, right and centre – first for someone else, then to get
revenge for being betrayed back into this life (or something like that), and then finally because he's just really pissed.
So that emotional grounding behind all the killing – and the
thing that makes John Wick pretty likeable in the first film – gets lost.
Instead he’s just a ruthlessly efficient killing machine – and while that is
fun to watch, it’s not as immediately engaging as the first film. In fact, the
second film (aiming to go bigger and better) is basically just three orgies of
gunplay and violence, linked together by a few tongue-in-cheek dialogue scenes.
It’s another of those films made for YouTube clips. The action
scenes can pretty much be watched and enjoyed without the burden of trawling
through the nonsense plot, so you might as well hunt those down online and
watch them alone. They’re really well done, extremely well shot and pretty
exciting (if covered in claret). The rest of the film you can take or leave to
be honest.
That’s despite all the best efforts of those involved. Keanu
Reeves still brings a slacker charm to the role, even if it’s one that doesn’t stretch
even his limited acting range. Ian McShane has a decent, fun turn as an
influential member of a shadowy criminal organisation. We even get a rather dry
Matrix reunion between Reeves and
Fishburne. It’s very well directed and there are occasional good jokes.
However, it lacks a decent villain (Scamarcio as a Mafia
baddie is singularly uninspiring), it goes on too long and, most of all, it’s
just not quite as good as the first film. There the “world building” around the
edges of the film was a fun aside from the action. Here it’s the focus – with
strange councils and mystical rules all over the place – and that just doesn’t
quite work as well.
John Wick 2 is
fun, don’t get me wrong. But somehow it feels less charming and more bloated,
something that is starting to feel itself a little too important and, in
throwing more and more at the screen, means you lose the heart of some of the
original.