Keanu shoots more people

Rating: 6/10 (16 April 2019)

Would it be harsh if I said that many people were actually quite surprised at how good the first 'John Wick' film was? Keanu Reeves' star seems to have waned over recent years and he's hardly the A-lister he once was. However, with such success of the first outing, I guess a sequel was guaranteed. I eagerly sat down to watch 'part 2,' but somehow I didn't feel that lightning has struck twice.
The first time round the - seemingly indestructible - titular assassin went on a murderous rampage of revenge because some hoods killed his dog (no, seriously - that's the kind of 'character motivation' we deal with in these films!). This time round, some baddies only go and total his car. Guess what... John Wick doesn't just call his insurance company and hire a rental car until the garage can knock the dents out. He gets pretty much gather every gun not already used by Schwarzenegger and starts shooting people.
And he does shoot a lot of people. He travels from one location getting surrounded by baddies who can't really shoot straight (I believe this is now technically called 'Stormtrooper aim') and, if any do manage to scratch him, bullets only seem to graze him slightly. Then he shoots more people in a different setting.
And that's about it really. As much as I do enjoy action scenes (some of the shoot-outs in 'The Matrix' were literally revolutionary and nothing had ever been seen like it before in cinema) here it was literally Keanu shooting people. If a film's main selling point is its action, I'd like to see something a bit more original. I know most fans of the genre will probably have seen every hero blast every type of gun in every type of location known to man, but, even now, there are still ways of coming up with something new (think of how the action is portrayed in recent films like 'Kingsman, Shoot 'em Up' and 'Upgrade'). Here, it's just shooting people.
At the end of the day, 'John Wick 2' isn't a bad film. I didn't hate it. I just was hoping for something a little more than one generic shoot out after the next. I felt his car 'died' for nothing here.