John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

[Plain Old Tele]

Knocking my grade down to a C+.

[Jake Gittes]

On 14.02.2017 at 3:42 AM, Sam said:

Ignore the ancient creature above.

 

[WrathOfHan]

30 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

Knocking my grade down to a C+.

[Mango]

I love this movie. Fantastic sequel. Hopefully this inspires a lot more action films from a technical standpoint. The cinematography, editing, and choreography was top notch.

[CJohn]

This movie is God, Jesus and Heaven rolled into one.

[Jay Beezy]

I have no gripes with this film. This isn't a gripe so much as a suggestion.

 

Does anyone think that John should have goaded Santino into trying to shoot first at the Continental, like calling him a coward and weaker than his sister? That way, killing Santino would have been a self-defense kill and membership privileges would have remained.

 

I can understand John's impulse to kill Santino out of rage, though.

[Goffe]

When hand-to-hand combats & shootouts start to feel like well-synchronized dance choreographies you know something is not right. Action scenes are supposed to be about  people fighting for their lives, and not about an indestructible superhero demolishing puny obstacles; there must be an urgency, stakes to it, or else all becomes meaningless. Seriously, how do people find enjoyment in seeing Wick kill Henchman #87 like it's nothing?

 

John Wick 2 is also about nothing. They give the most half-assed, lousy excuse to have Wick back on destruction mode and run with it for 2 goddamn hours. At least the first, which was about a grieving man seeking revenge for being robbed of the last thing that mattered to him, tried.

 

It's visually nicer, but that's about the only difference between this and countless other generic action romps. 3/10

Edited June 15, 2017 by Goffe

[Plain Old Tele]

16 minutes ago, Goffe said:

When fights & shootings start to feel like well-synchronized dance choreographies instead of two people fighting for their lives it loses all the urgency and the action becomes meaningless. And Reeves is pretty much a superhero here, which makes it worse.  How do people take excitement from having Wick killing 87th henchman like it's nothing? 

 

Plus, John Wick 2 is about nothing. They came up with the most half-assed, lousy excuse to get him back on action that one can think of and ran with it for 2 goddamn hours. At least the first was about something, a grieving man seeking revenge for criminals taking away the last thing that mattered to him.

 

It's prettier but other than that I couldn't honestly tell the difference between this and other generic action pictures. 35/100

 

 

I thought you were supposed to love things I hated, and vice versa.

[Deep Wang]

3 hours ago, Goffe said:

When fights & shootings start to feel like well-synchronized dance choreographies instead of two people fighting for their lives it loses all the urgency and the action becomes meaningless. And Reeves is pretty much a superhero here, which makes it worse. How do people get enjoyment from having Wick killing 87th henchman like it's nothing? 

 

 

Congratulations, you've described 95% of all action movies. 

 

And please refrain from ever telling me how you feel about Jackie Chan movies. 

[Goffe]

On 02/03/2017 at 5:12 AM, Rallax said:

 

Congratulations, you've described 95% of all action movies. 

then 95% of the action movies sucks heavy.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Goffe

[Avatree]

Saw this last night. Not quite as well structured as the first one and the story was basically non existent, so I wasn't as involved as the first one. BUT I fucking love the world building in this, really expands on the first one. The idea that there are all these secret criminal dealers hidden inside clothes factories, in bookshops, etc and the criminals trade in gold coins. Communicating via typewriters and carrier pigeons. Seeing a network of disguised homeless people that are spies. Just a really exciting and imaginative fantasy criminal underworld. And then this idea that there are bounty hunters all over - seeing him walk through streets and just get attacked by hidden figures.

And the action is well choreographed, some really cool set pieces - the whole thing looks and feels great. 

[aabattery]

It's pretty cool.

 

I have literally no idea how they did the hall of mirrors fight. Was it CGI? Tricky camera angles? I don't know but it was blowing my mind.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2017 by aabattery

[IndustriousAngel]

Entertaining movie but without any substance, most action sequences reminded me of ego-shooters, and the movie didn't find a consistent balance between thriller and parody - some scenes were like taken out from "Kingsmen" while others tried to invoke an atmosphere like 80s thrillers. And there was very little tension, there's never any doubt about what's going to happen next.

 

B, 6/10 (good production values)

[BoxOfficeZ]

Loved how ridiculous the subway scene was. Just them taking shots at each other as civilians are walking by not giving a damn. Makes you wonder if everyone in the world is aware of the hitman/assassin thing going on, but if you don't get involved you don't get hurt.

 

Things I loved? You can actually see what's going on in hand to hand fights instead of a shaky camera mess. 

 

The sick reloading Wick does. The shotgun one was great. The pencil kills Wow. 

 

Not exactly the greatest film in the world, but, I was entertained and really enjoyed it. Enough for me.

 

"Are you here for the Pope?" Made me laugh.

 

B+

 

On 5/7/2017 at 6:06 PM, aabattery said:

I have literally no idea how they did the hall of mirrors fight. Was it CGI? Tricky camera angles? I don't know but it was blowing my mind.

 

That was pretty cool, I'm definitely sure they just erased the cameraman with CGI. I feel bad for whichever editor had to do that. 

[Rsyu]

Great film, I really enjoyed it. As some have mentioned, the ending felt a tad predictable (he kills everyone again) but it's one helluva ride to be sure which more than made up for it for me

 

Also I have to say, I got a huge kick out of the Morpheus-Neo reunion  felt like old times

 

Grade: A-

[Joel M]

It has even less of a story than the first one but I think it was better in every other way. The visuals are stunning, the fights are amazing, Keanu is a great, no dog dies.

[GrimFandango]

First off, I loved the first one--gave it an A-.  That "oh." scene was delectable; the world building was fresh and interesting, and I really liked getting the idea of how bad ass JW was just from his reputation.

 

That said, I found Wick2 to be in a word, disappointing.

 

My biggest problem with the film is that in the first film, he does things intelligently, with a plan and expertise; but, in this one, he seems like he's not being intelligent--he's just a killing terminator clone of his previous self.

 

The sequence where he retrieves his mustang (which he really, really cares about) was the first big problem for me, because right off the bat he pretty much destroys the car. He didn't plan at all how he was going to get it, he just went in, grabbed it, and started driving it out. What did he think was going to happen? Then he completely destroys it in the process. Somehow, he's able to drive it home and with a completely smashed windshield--is he supposed to have x-ray vision? Why not at the very least kick it out? Just seemed like a dumb decision by the writers. THEN, John L's character is just there long enough to make some lazy-writing quip, and guess he's going to ship-of-Theseus the car back together....?

 

The other huge plot hole was when John W is forced to kill that dude's sister, and he says "No way, can't be done. Impossible!!!"  This is John Wick saying this, so I'm going to take him at his word that this is going to be like Mission Impossible. So what happens?  Apparently, the sister's supposedly world-league army of body guards are amazingly incompetent, and John is able to take a completely unguarded secret tunnel straight into her fortress lair, and he "assassinates" her....what? I thought this was supposed to be impossible or something...

 

Anyways, we did see John had the foresight to think he might be pursued on his escape. Which he is. By the dude's men (so I guess they got by his sister's men without any trouble?)

 

Then later on, somewhere along the way through a skyscraper there's a floor made completely out of mirrored corridors. For some reason. Makes for a cool battle, but the whole time I'm thinking "Why is this place there? Who built it? Is this some kind of confusing safe-room for a billionaire?

 

The additional world-building was cool, and getting some more of the "rules"--but then at the end everybody is a secret assassin. Oh wait, did I say everybody? Yes, I mean everybody.

 

The guy making your pizza? An assassin. The guy cutting hair at the barber shop? An assassin. Your landlord? An assassin. Turns out, everybody in that whole city is an assassin.  I guess they must either spend their time killing each other, or this is the deadliest tourist destination in the world.

 

I was about to give it a C, but I just remembered the soundtrack. So it gets a C-.  There was no variation in that sound track--just a non-stop, eastern-euro-club drone that really got on my nerves.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by GrimFandango

[Hatebox]

Had the same reaction to this as the first one: good but overpraised. One very specific thing that annoys me about both films is what I call "Jack Sparrow syndrome": other characters constantly talk about the myth of Wick and how he's completely unstoppable but then the action scenes show him as really quite vulnerable and frequently reliant on good luck, which of course he has to be otherwise there'd be no dramatic tension. Not a deal-breaker, but there is a bit of disconnect between the telling and the showing.

[Eric Lancer]

On 2/28/2017 at 9:49 PM, Jay Beezy said:

I have no gripes with this film. This isn't a gripe so much as a suggestion.

 

Does anyone think that John should have goaded Santino into trying to shoot first at the Continental, like calling him a coward and weaker than his sister? That way, killing Santino would have been a self-defense kill and membership privileges would have remained.

 

I can understand John's impulse to kill Santino out of rage, though.

John's personality is a professional no nonsense guy, unlike Santino he doesn't manipulate his action or his words ..

 

Anyway, it won't matter whether it was self defense or not... the rules clearly state no killing in company ground 

[Eric Lancer]

On 8/1/2017 at 9:44 PM, Hatebox said:

Had the same reaction to this as the first one: good but overpraised. One very specific thing that annoys me about both films is what I call "Jack Sparrow syndrome": other characters constantly talk about the myth of Wick and how he's completely unstoppable but then the action scenes show him as really quite vulnerable and frequently reliant on good luck, which of course he has to be otherwise there'd be no dramatic tension. Not a deal-breaker, but there is a bit of disconnect between the telling and the showing.

Not really, It actually show how it happens in real world , most people ..like us, love to exaggerated  the happenings of a tide, to make more of a myth and story ... people simply like to invent a hero among themselves 

the fact that the movie make John vulnerable is to avoid John Wick 2 as another larger than life movie such as that "car action movie" , in fact if you watch it closely, John constantly look at the ammunition of his arsenal, which i appreciate because some movie just assume everyone has unlimited ammunition where ever they go