You don't want me owing you

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2017)

The film is a true sequel, picking up where the last one leaves off. In fact the first twelve minutes is part of the first film. Once loose ends are tied up, John (Keanu Reeves) gets a marker called in and reluctantly must do a hit job in Rome. It takes about an hour for the film to develop to the point John must kill every New Yorker, one person at a time in spite of all of his wounds.
John is supposed to be some sort of ghost, yet like "Cheers," everyone knows his name. His boogeyman character which was so prominent in the first film, seems to have waned in spite of his latest deeds. The thing that made the first film so special, is subdued in this one. The film has some good characters: Ruby Rose as Ares, Common as Cassian, and Laurence Fishburne as the Bowery King. I found them and not Reeves making the film. The whole neutral territory thing was used to the point it became inane. I am also tired of watching the guy lament over his wife. Move on. Put you pictures on "The Cloud" so when your house burns down you have them forever.
We see John Wick, 'Death's Very Emissary," kill all kinds of people in all kinds of fight scenes while in an injured condition where a normal person could not walk. There is talk of hell and purgatory in the film, creating a fight scene that reminded me of Dante. John Wick is lead by "Phlegyas" down an elevator and eventually to a floor with mirrors for self reflection and burning CG fires as art, the fifth level of hell where the wrathful are punished for eternity with fighting. There is a character named Charon (Lance Reddick) in the film. Wick ultimately creates his fifth level of hell for chapter 3. If they had only made the rest of the film that good.
Guide: F-word. No sex. near nudity.