Not as satisfying as I hoped, but still good.

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2018)

The decision to flesh out the world more in the followup movie was the correct and obvious one. The story is the tired "one last job" routine and watching John Wick killing dozens more random bad guys is only partially going to fill that interest gap. Going back to the Continental and expanding on that curious and baroque society with new characters, locations, and mechanisms ... good! That's what I wanted.
The problem of course with explaining what was originally mysterious and ambiguous is it risks an explanation we might reject as nonsensical. Unfortunately with John Wick 2, the more you see the less sense it makes.
So, good things first: fun, memorable characters, well acted, beautifully shot and choreographed.
Bad things: tacked on, pointless opening sequence, poor soundtrack, insufficient time spent developing what could otherwise be poignant emotional or dramatic beats.
Worse things: (spoilers)
I was pulled out of the movie on several occasions. Small things, but they add up.
I'll accept that this is an alternative, matrix-y universe where the world is controlled by all-powerful crime syndicates with an assassins guild maintaining order and balance at the center. That's actually a really cool idea, but the movie doesn't do anything with it. The political and social consequences are not explored, not even hinted at. (Do they have police, is there a functional government, what criminal activities is the Bowery Kind involved in?) So in the last act, when we are thrown into world of regular commuters and city-dwellers, things unravel because the groundwork of how that world fits in with the world of the Continental hasn't been laid.
So, hundreds of people in the city are members of the assassins guild. A contract to kill John Wick goes out, for 7 million dollars and suddenly every 100 yards someone pulls a gun on him, only to be killed - in public view - by Wick. An no one reacts or even notices.
Why don't ordinary people react to gunfights or knife fights happening in the same subway car as they are in? But moreover, why would any assassin, who all know who John Wick is and how impossible he is to kill, make spontaneous, clearly suicidal runs at him for the remote chance of getting a paltry 7 million dollars? ... If John Wick knows that the homeless people are members of a similar assassin criminal network, why don't the guildmember assassins after him also know this? Last example, the gold tokens used to pay for goods and services by the guildmembers. Clearly the value is somewhat arbitrary, but it's understood they are valuable, who knows, say $10000 or more. Wick's rainy day stash only has 50 or so, and just one of them is enough to stay at the Continental for a few days for example. Then there's a scene where one character uses one to pay for another characters drink, turning everything you thought you understood about the system on it's head.
The movie should be structured in such a way as I'm not forced to think about these kinds of petty details. I'm not asking for everything to be spelled out, I'm just asking for things to make sense within its own made-up world.
Finally a comment on the fight scenes. They aren't as memorable or as good as the first film, with the exception of the fight with Cassius, and perhaps Ares. When Wick was attacked in his home in the first film, we knew roughly how many people were after him, and could follow their progress through the rooms as well as Wick's efforts to hide from them take them out. It was a tense and suspenseful sequence. Even the nightclub sequence had a stealth aspect and different spaces to interact with. Here, two dozen goons pop around corners only to be killed instantly one after the other. There is no progression or inventive use of space or geometry outside of immediate blocking cover, just run in, get killed, repeat 20-30 times.
I'm still signed up to watch the next one, I just hope they do a better job next time.