"John Wick The Invincible" aka "Meh"

Rating: 5/10 (5 March 2017)

Maybe I was having too high hopes for this movie, or maybe it's because I liked the original a lot and only recently re-watched it on DVD, but this movie was a let down.
So, let's count the negative.
1) John is invincible, which kills all suspense.
In the first "John Wick" we had a bad-ass guy who was an excellent shot, was very fast and had quite a lot of luck (and good friends). But when he got shot once, or was stabbed, he bled and had a doctor take a look at it.
How did the screenwriter turn him even more "bad-ass" in this sequel? He gave him a bulletproof jacket, had him get hit multiple times with cars, and take a rain of direct bullet hits without as much as blinking an eye. There's not a single scene in the whole movie where you'd think that John might not make it out alive.
2) faceless goons keep on coming, so killing them gets boring.
The beginning scene in the garage, and the long escape scene in Rome felt like a video game - one henchman, kill it, another henchman, kill it, another henchman, kill it, another henchman, kill it. on more henchman, kill it. And so on and so on. No imagination, no suspense.
3) pacing was way off.
The first movie nicely interleaved exposition and flashback scenes with intense action. Not so much here - we have a drawn out action scene in the beginning, then 30 minutes of exposition, then another badly overdrawn action scene, then some more exposition.
4) the "mythology" was not interesting, nor helpful.
In the first movie we had a a quiet assassin who worked with the Russian mafia, had made a number of connections during this time, tended to pay with special coins and knew a shady hotel which was used by criminals to get a good night's sleep. The second movie turns this setup into a full-blown "association of gangsters", who have unlimited resources, a council, their own underground messaging system, dedicated housing if several cities, presumably hundreds - if not thousands - of members (of which several dozen are professional assassins and, from the looks of it, have non-criminal day jobs) and random rules which have to be followed. Why do we need this?
5) revenge for revenge's sake. We have enough B-grade movies with that logic.
OK, so the first movie had this ridiculous premise of avenging a dead dog. Even the characters in the movie acknowledged that it was ridiculous. But a deeper meaning was attached to John's rampage and it made sense. It was about punishment for done deeds, not about whom those deeds had been done to. No so much in the current movie. It's just another generic "he tried to kill me, now I'll kill him" film.
6) it sort-of ruins the character of John Wick.
The first episode gave us a solitary elite assassin who wouldn't kill on the hotel's premise (contrary to ms. Perkins), most likely wouldn't kill his friends (unlike Dafoe's character, who seemingly would) and had pulled off an "impossible task" to gain his freedom. This sequel reveals that Wick will kill in the Continental if his grudge is big enough, will kill people he considers friends, the "impossible task" wasn't all his doing and that he's simply one of many-many-many gunmen who roam the land looking for a quick buck...
CONCLUSION:
All-in-all I'd sadly the movie is a weak rehash of the original and offered nothing that would explain the hype it's getting.
I'll most likely give it another shot when it comes out on DVD, but until then John Wick of 2014 gets my vote over John Wick of 2016.