Not bad, but you know what to expect.

Rating: 6/10 (11 July 2015)

Slick, stupid, senseless action entertainment stars Keanu Reeves in the title role. Wick is a former assassin whose wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan, in a thankless role) dies from an unspecified disease. The lonely and distraught Wick receives a final present from her one night: a beagle puppy named Daisy. Soon, Russian creeps led by the infantile Iosef (Alfie Allen) break into his home, steal his car, and beat Daisy to death. Now Wick has nothing left to live for but revenge, and he goes after the Russian mob - his old employers - with a ferocious tenacity.
This viewer felt about as bad as he could for Mr. Wick, given that the characters - all of them, really - are thinly written. While it provides some visceral joy watching this force of nature unleash his fury on a non-stop parade of thoroughly expendable action movie villains, there's not that much humanity. The guy wades through henchmen so quickly that he turns into the kind of superhero too often seen in this genre. Fortunately, he does take *some* lumps before this is over, and at one point it looks as if it might be curtains for him.
There is a ton of violence, and a ton of digital splatter, although not very much that would be likely to seriously gross out some viewers. The pacing is definitely of a very deliberate variety, until the story - such as it is - begins to take off. While all of this is mildly amusing, "John Wick" doesn't really do anything that we haven't seen before in scores of action-revenge sagas.
Keanu is once again a figure in minimalist "acting"; in his one attempt to truly emote, he does his best, but he's still not that convincing. Ian McShane and John Leguizamo are thoroughly wasted in cameo roles; Willem Dafoe gets a little more to do. Swedish star Michael Nyqvist offers some fun as the mob boss. Allen is such a weasel that he can't die soon enough. Adrianne Palicki, like Nyqvist, is entertaining enough as a persistent would be hit woman. Other familiar faces include Lance Reddick, Dean Winters, Daniel Bernhardt, Randall Duk Kim, Clarke Peters, Kevin Nash, and the always welcome (if much too briefly seen) David Patrick Kelly as the leader of a team that cleans up peoples' messes.
"John Wick" is an agreeable enough, but also forgettable, way to kill 102 minutes.
Six out of 10.