Amazing Sequel That Maintains Almost Every Good Quality About Its Predecessor

Rating: 9/10 (7 July 2017)

I watched this right after the original John Wick, and it felt like one long amazing movie that never ceased to keep me interested. The only slight drop off in quality is that the story doesn't give me as strong of a reason to want to see John kill the antagonist. However, there is no way I could handle the emotions of seeing another dog die. So I mostly felt relief. Through the whole thing I kept worrying that something would happen to his dog. I was so happy to see it alive and well at the end.
What really defines these movies for me though, is the incredible choreography of the fight scenes, and combining it with just the right amount of story to care about the fighting. In this sense, John Wick: Chapter 2 is perfect.
One slight weakness, that probably isn't a weakness for most, is that this movie seems to want to shoe in another really strong token female villain, that is way stronger than most of the other men. It feels out of place, and takes my attention away from the movie. It just doesn't seem realistic to me for a woman with such a feminine body to be so strong. Like maybe if the female villain looked more like those female body builders that take steroids, it could work. But overall, the scenes with the female villain are short. So this isn't that big of a deal.
As for the criticism that the fighting is a bit unrealistic, in that John seems too immune to the attacks against him, I agree. Usually, I would consider this to be a problem in most movies. But I find it easy to overlook this in this movie, since the style of fighting is just so darn entertaining. In the back of my mind, I just kind of just imagine that he has some slight super power that he and no one else knows about, in order to allow myself to enjoy the fighting.