Wooden man shooting people in the face

Rating: 2/10 (17 April 2015)

A lot of video games have been influenced by films - the plots, the characters, the framing, the cinematography. And increasingly a lot of films are now influenced back by video games - the plots, the characters, the framing, the cinematography. And so it is the case with John Wick.
It's set in a world where everyone seems to be a gangster or an assassin, or a formal part of that world. It's all rather cold and detached. There is the flimsiest of back stories but it mostly consists of a very wooden Keanu Reeves shooting people in the face, sometimes stabbing them, and of course the obligatory 'throwing people through sheets of glass'.
The whole point of a video game is that you control the character. Even if the game consists merely of killing people, the fact that you are controlling them makes it an immersive experience.
Just passively watching a wooden game character shooting people in the face, sometimes stabbing them, and of course the obligatory 'throwing people through sheets of glass', makes for a rather pointless and tedious 101 minutes.