John Wick Chapter 2:Wick Harder
After the success of John Wick and a return to action with a dark edge for Keanu Reeves returns to tell more of the story of John Wick.
In the first film John Wick is forced out of retirement of being an cold blooded assassin after his dog is killed and his car is stolen, he kills everyone that gets in his way until no one is left.
Chapter 2 begins with Wick getting the car that was stolen and killing a bunch of people that stand in his way, at one point he actual leaves but comes back just to kill a few more people before he goes to see Abram(Peter Stormare) who is the brother of Viggo(Michael Nyqvist) from the first film.
John Wick seems to have finally gotten out of the assassin underworld and is living life once again with a new dog but without his car which was damaged very bad when he was getting it back.
One night Wick is visited by Santino D’Antonio(Riccardo Scamarcio) who comes to collect one final debt from John, In which of course he refuses to honor, D’Antonio leaves but not before blowing up Wick’s house and thankfully not killing his dog this go around.
Chapter 2 takes everything that made the first movie good and makes it even better here, we get to see Reeves even more vicious if you can believe that once the debt is paid and he is double crossed by D’Antonio who puts a large bounty on his head which forces assassins from all over the world to come for John Wick.
A few stand out supporting performances led by Ian McShane(Winston) who returns from the first film as John’s confidant and high ranking member of this underworld, McShane does no wrong weather on TV or movies and always chews the scenery in a good way.
Rapper turned Actor Common is really good here as Cassian a rival assassin of John, who is just as deadly as John there are a few points in the film where these two battle and each fight is more intense than the previous one.
Ruby Rose shows up here as the silent but very deadly Ares, since I havent to much of her other action roles I can’t really compare but I thought she did a good job here especially in the role that she is given.
It was cool seeing Laurence Fishburne show up here as The Bowery King and the scenes between him and Keanu are laced with a lot of The Matrix references.
The original Django Franco Nero shows up here as well and makes the movie that much more cool because he is Django after all.
One thing I noticed watching this movie is that there were a lot of nods and homages to Bruce Lee and some of his films namely the brawls that John Wick would get into walking down the street was always something that was said of Bruce Lee where random people would try and challenge him on the street
and near the end of the film where John Wick has to go through a maze of rooms that are filled with mirrors which looked to be pulled right from Enter The Dragon.
One complaint that I had with the film is the ending not the fact that it clearly sets up for the next movie and oh yes there will be a next movie, but it’s just how as a viewer I felt bad for John Wick who was trying to led a decent peaceful life but now has basically the whole world coming for him as he runs along with his dog trying to get out of town.
If you enjoy the first movie and want to see how much deeper this rabbit hole goes than you should really check out Chapter 2.
