Underwhelming

Rating: 6/10 (2 October 2019)

I think the first John Wick movie struck a chord with audiences because it was a back-to-basics action movie without a superhero anywhere to be found. The superhero/comic book genre seems to have subsumed action films. If you want to see stuff blown up real good, that's where you go: not to Schwarzenegger or Stallone or Van Damme or Lundgren or Snipes. Standard action flicks don't have the budget to impress you with special effects any more; in fact, they mostly go straight to the shelf these days, bypassing the cinema.
What's funny is that "John Wick: Chapter 2" is barely any different to those movies that are comic books brought to life. Watching it, I often felt like I was looking at "A Scanner Darkly" from all those years ago, so stylized are the movie's visuals and of course, here's Keanu Reeves again, nobody's idea of a realistic actor.
He's also basically a superhero. At one point in this movie, he takes a bullet to the gut, and apparently keeps it there for the rest of the story. He accumulates scratches on his face, but seems to come through without any lasting damage regardless. Obviously, action movie heroes are always superhuman when played by Arnie and Sly. But going back to the '70s, we had movies like "The French Connection" and "Dirty Harry" that really made you feel what the characters felt, precisely because they weren't indestructible. Perhaps it's not a relief from superhero movies that fans of the John Wick series are after, but just something that purports to be.
It's a pretty good time, but also kind of underwhelming. There's lots of martial arts in the film, with people tangling their legs around each other and flopping this way and that - but Reeves isn't a gifted martial artist like Iko Uwais. The fighting scenes pale in comparison to any of the movies coming out of Indonesia in recent years.
The movie also has a role call of amazing character actors, so many that I'm sure I'll forget a few. In fact, I'll forget some because they're not utilised well. I was unimpressed by their casting of Lance Reddick (of "The Wire" fame) as a hotel porter in the previous film. He's back again, and gets a little more to do. But what about John Leguizamo, Peter Stormare, Franco Nero? They're barely given anything to do. Common could have been a memorable rival assassin, but the movie doesn't give him too many memorable moments.