Generic and predictable movie

Rating: 2/10 (8 April 2016)

This will be a short review because I already wasted enough time watching this drivel. I could have watched it while flying a stunt plane through the Grand Canyon and not missed a single character or plot development - because there really weren't any. Everything played out in such a predictable and formalistic fashion that I was beginning to think it was double bluff.
So what were the redeeming features? It certainly wasn't the acting and I'm a big Keanu Reeves fan. Perhaps he failed to connect to the character the same way I did. I couldn't really fault the fight scenes, they were pretty well choreographed.
Looking at the IMDb message boards a common defense seems to be that the movie shouldn't be taken too seriously in order to be enjoyed but there's no evidence that John Wick is in any way trying to be a tongue-in-cheek parody or intentionally cliché. Telling people not to take a poor joke too seriously doesn't magically make it a better joke.
John Wick's character is talked up to be one of the cleverest and toughest men in the world but it's evident that he's actually just one of the luckiest. I've seen storm troopers hit more targets than his enemies and there were a few occasions where his lack of basic precaution left him needing to be saved by his old pal Willem Defoe.
A good example of incompetence came from one of John Wick's old 'hard man' pals when he had handcuffed a deadly assassin to a chair in such a way that all she had to do was stand up to be detached from the chair. I can't help notice these little things in films and each one adds strain to the suspension of disbelief, which in this movie, ultimately broke it and left me wanting the movie to end as bad as Wick wanted to avenge his dog.