John Wick 2 film review (2017)- by What The Flick

Full text transcript of the John Wick film review:

Everyone is going to watch the flick, Christie, Matt Alonzo, they saw John Wick, chapter two, sadly, I did not. I did finally see John Wick this week. Thank God I have never said I loved you like this. I can’t wait.

Very similar. Go ahead. All right. John Wick, too. He’s back looking for his car this time. You know, his car got stolen in the first one dog got killed. Spoiler alert this one. He’s got a new dog after the old car. And, you know, he gets a contract that he doesn’t want to do because somebody presents him with a marker. And the rules of this society are you have to fulfill the contract. You have to pay back the marker or you die. And so he decides he doesn’t want to do it and then maybe he does want to do it.

And it all serves to start. Lots of action sequences, lots of guns, lots of killing. It’s cool.

Oh, good to see you again so soon.

You have no idea what’s coming. You are a war.

Where do you want to just give me a gun and one thing that’s so cool about these movies is like the specificity of their language and their rules and their code and words, the code and words they use to establish their world and the fact that there is this hotel that is off limits to its neutral zone. I like how rich that is and it feels so specific and and yet it is within our very recognizable contemporary life right now is really cool.

It’s kind of what you want wanted to have been before. But I like wanted to. But it goes totally off the rails in a way that this movie stays.

You know, I hesitate to use the word grounded, but this this movie stays accessible and kind of consistent, you know, when when want to introduce like. Well, so there’s these magical weavers.

Wait a minute. What. Right. And the bullet bending this one is all like right at the edge of believability like this all could be going on like this illuminati of assassins.

And it stays consistent with that. And it plays around in that world some more. And there are stakes. It’s you know, it manages to raise the stakes from the first one, which is presented with this marker that the people around him say, you know, you really shouldn’t have given this marker out to get your job done in the first one. And so when the guy comes calling on it and burns his house down and he says, OK, well, I guess I’ll go do it. And things go badly for John.

And it ends in a position that, yeah, we’re going to get a third one and that’s going to be awesome to, you know, if they deliver on this. I think this movie is very, very effective doing what it wants to do. It’s exactly what you kind of hope it’s going to be. It’s terrific.

Yeah, it is. If you like the first one, I’m looking at somebody. I’m not texting. I’m looking at somebody watching. I with the name of the actor who is the Hoover. Oh, Lance Reddick, who runs the hotel, the manager. Oh, he’s great in. This is a great supporting cast. Common good in this. I don’t want to say one person is a surprise.

Is Ian McShane back. Yes. That very good. Yeah.

The person that’s the surprise is in the trailer. OK, is he.

Yeah. All right. I’m not, I’m not going to say so but there’s a little matrix written down. Why did you. I’m not about the Matrix José. That Hugo. I was trying so hard to not spoil things for you. Joey pants your pants. Exactly. Wait a minute. Anyway, if it’s a shitload of gunfire, I mean it is almost numbing, I would say, but it’s always creative.

It’s never the same big action set piece over and over again. The one in the big mirrored art installation is very cool.

Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of a throwback to enter the dragon and it works really well. Lady from Shanghai.

Ok, with the mirrors and the dragon borrowed it from. OK, OK, let’s Orson Welles, please.

Anyway, no, it is is not surprisingly not repetitive, given no amount of gunfire that occurs. There’s a lot of care here that was taken in. It’s the same director from the first one, the former Chadds to Heskey, who is a former stuntman. Right.

Director and worked with worked with Keanu Reeves on The Matrix.

I believe, if I’m not mistaken, this is a great visual verve to it. It’s it’s scary in its tenth, but it’s also very cheeky.

And one of the things this movie does well is that each action set piece is different than the one before it, and none of them repeat what we saw in the first film. So they’re totally different. It’s these are these are guys who really take their craft seriously and they’re giving you something new.

And this is, you know, when when we complain about action movies being by the numbers and things that show us everything we’ve seen before, it’s because we want something like this. And these guys, again, they really are trying to push themselves and they’re taking their art seriously. And it works and look like is this a movie that’s particularly deep? Not really.

Doesn’t matter. It does not matter. And code.

But I think I mean, based on the person. But it sounds like with this one as well, they at least bother to put in a connective tissue. That’s interesting. Yeah. And that maybe this may not be the deepest characters in the world, but their world is so interesting.

Well, and, you know, and one of the things this movie does and I actually think this is a movie that has a deeper character arc and more a character with more depth than what we see in 50 Shades of Darker is that. In the first film, you get the sense that John Wick had put aside all of this killing and for his wife, that he then lost and he reluctantly comes back and kills everybody. This one, he’s now wrestling with that. And you see that it really affects him. And you see this character and Carol plays this really well, that kind of natural, laconic kind of sadness to him serves him very, very well in this, because it’s a character that you realize has gone back on him, who he thought he was, and he still kind of embracing what he’s really good at, but he’s not enjoying it right now. And he’s it’s not that there’s hesitation in what he does, but there’s regret. There’s there’s a fair amount. There’s this melancholy to his character, which I think is really interesting in an action movie and a movie that really is over the top and and gripping that sense of melancholy, I think is not something that you see a lot and it works really well. And it add some gravitas to this gravitas.

It’s a great it’s a great fit for everything that Keanu Reeves does so well and knowingly so. But not to the extent of self-parody. Right. Is it the physicality of it and the stoic kind of mysterious mysticism about him? Yeah, he’s working his ass off. And yeah, I enjoyed it. And everybody else has to know it’s a great cast. And what they that was an interesting touch was the dog, the breed of dog changes and how that’s a reflection of where he is psychologically because the first movie is adorable little Kelly Beagle puppy and now he has a pit bull. Isn’t a sweet she’s a sweet girl, right. A girl. Right. Is it? It’s a no, it’s a boy. It’s just named Dog, the dog’s name dog. But it’s a pit bull this time, which maybe is an indication of like how he’s tough and himself and trying to protect himself from the outside world. But the dog is still loyal and sweet.

Right. And kind of the professional courtesy moments between him and common and the other the other woman.

The other female assassin, I can’t remember her name, Claudia Drini, who speaks in sign language. Oh, Ruby Rose. Ruby Rose. Oh, right. In Triple X, I thought you meant the Italian. And that’s a really good moment, too. That’s a really interesting one. The code they all the code they all abide by.

But but the but the scenes with Ruby Rose, who’s just speaking in sign language, they could have really overplayed that. And they don’t they’re just. Yeah, I think and there’s this this perfect you know, Ben talks about movies where you see somebody who’s good at their job doing their jobs. Well, it just takes that moment.

And there’s this kind of professional acknowledgement between these characters, you know, and it’s like, hey, working is a job. Yeah, it was a job for me. And you know what this means.

And there’s this shorthand, there’s the shorthand and the way they talk that you can absolutely follow along with. And it’s really satisfying to see this is a great movie. I think I might be talking myself up to a higher school.

I think I was going to say seven and now I’m going to say eight.

What are you going to do? I was going to say eight, but now I’m saying nine. OK, Matthew, this is awesome. So eight point five. Yeah, it’s everything you want. Yeah, it’s in the high nineties on the tomato meter. It’ll end up certified fresh. It’s a great movie because it I’m seeing it this weekend. Good bye. Go see it.