Bigger and Badder (the Good Kind), But It Comes at a Cost

Rating: 7/10 (21 September 2019)

Picking almost right where the previous film ended, "John Wick Chapter 2" deals with the consequences of Wick's return to the assassin life and how he got out to begin with.
As expected, it expands on the mythology hinted at in the first movie, with the revelation that there's a high council of sorts, other Continental hotels around the world, and a very widespread network of assassins.
Also as expected, it ups the ante with bigger action sequences, and a much higher body count. We get to know more about some rival assassins played quite brilliantly by Common and Ruby Rose (whose character communicates solely through sign language; in many cases, this kind of thing is used as a gimmick to make the audience remember a character when they have nothing else to distinguish them, but it's not the case here and is used only as an aspect of the character; smartly done). Keanu Reeves...let's the Reeves of old come through a couple times, with a couple of bizarre and inappropriate inflections. Ian McShane's Winston expands a little bit, although he still refers to John as Jonathan, which is just wrong. If it's supposed to be some kind of an in-joke with them, they don't reveal anything about it. Again, I think there's more going on with Lance Reddick's hotel manager than they're letting on. And I was a little disappointed that Peter Stormare wasn't in more of the film, as he's always fun.
Again, the world is very wide, and almost seems like everyone is involved with this underworld. There is an indication that that's not the case here and there, but we never get to meet anyone who doesn't know what's going on, which keeps some of that suspicion up.
The plot follows a pretty basic structure. Actually, it follows a pretty rigid structure. In a two hour movie, it can be broken down almost exactly into half-hour sequences, something that struck me as a little odd. There are some minor plot twist. Nothing major or out of the blue, but at least there was an attempt.
So now we come down to it. Is it better or worse than the first movie? Well, I would have to say "yes". It definitely ups the ante and is a much bigger film than the first movie, expanding on the mythology and the characters. At the same time, it falls into the trap that a lot of these bigger, badder sequels fall into, which is that with the bigger scope, it feels like they have to use a bigger yoke on everything in order to keep in reined in and from going off the rails on its own. In fact, they may have expanded the world too quickly, going from a city in the first movie to the entire globe in the second. That rapid expansion makes that bigger yoke much more percpetible and, while the ambition is admirable, at times I wondered if they may have bitten off more than they could chew.
Still an enjoyable action film, and if you liked the first film, you'll most likely enjoy this one.