Let's be honest...

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2019)

Is John Wick 2 a Great Film? Of course not, it's as dumb as a box of spanners. You could write the plot on a stamp without upsetting the Queen. Keanu Reeves delivers his lines like he's trying to do hard sums in his head. The baddie's so forgettable that half an hour after watching it, I can't even remember what he looked like. And obviously the whole thing's entirely preposterous and makes literally no sense whatsoever. And now here's why I'm giving it 8/10:
1) Other films are available. I've had a long week and tonight I wanted to watch a big dumb action movie that didn't require any thought or emotional commitment, and this does exactly what it says on the tin.
2) Keanu might act like he can't remember if he left the iron on, but boy is he committed to his craft. If by craft we mean looking angfused whilst being thrown out of windows/down stairs/off balconies and also shooting everyone in the face and/or stabbing them in the balls.
3) It looks beautiful. The location photography is stunning, the colour and lighting are richly layered and, unlike a lot of recent offerings, the action sequences are clear and easy to follow (not to mention crisply choreographed). No Shaky-Hands Cam here.
4) The 15-minute prologue, which answers the glaring unresolved question from the first film, is actually really good.
5) Some of the stunt work is astonishing.
6) It's a full 2 hours long and the fight scenes (of which there are many) get a bit repetitive (ok, you like throwing people over your shoulder before you shoot them in the face and/or stab them, we GET it), but it's relentlessly entertaining.
And that's the point - it's honest about what it is. It doesn't set out to be anything more or less than 2 hours of dumb, fast-moving entertainment, by which measure it admirably succeeds.
So no, it was never going to trouble the BAFTAs, and yes, it is gratuitously violent and hammy and stupid and not even really ABOUT anything - but it does a perfectly admirable job of being a John Wick movie, and in the mood I was in, I found it thoroughly enjoyable.