As with most things when it comes to modern (unoriginal in plot) films, it's all in the (ahem, straightens tie) execution.

Rating: 8/10 (9 February 2017)

This movie takes a little while to really get started - by this I mean the first half of the movie is going through the motions as far as story goes, with the set-up being that Wick owes one of those 'blood oaths' to a criminal scumbag and, after the guy sets his house on fire (as if he expects a smile to come from Wick with this task), he has him go kill his sister in Italy, who sits on some worldwide-criminal-council thing - but once it does, and it really does about 35/40 minutes in (and even more-so once Wick comes back from Rome to NYC), it's a violent pot of fun.
There's not much to intellectualize with this kind of filmmaking - like in the first movie, you get what it advertises, as Reeves kills a lot of people. I think what carries it over from being potentially boring or dreadful is that the execution is excellent. Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the first bone-crunching/guns-firing-knives-stabbing extravaganza, returns as solo director working from what must have been a thin script from Derek Kolstad. By this I mean not just in dialog, though Wick is a decidedly 'talk-less-action-and-looking-listening-more' kind of action anti-hero, but also that the director, who was a stunt-man for years, set out to craft this film completely during the shooting, with some minimal editing. What sets it apart from other action drek is Reeves as a formidable presence (the less he does, too, the better for us all), and how the director and his DP choose to shoot it, favoring comparatively to today long(er) takes and a flow to the action that is kinetic without being overly so.
In other words, if you somehow dragged yourself out to Jason Bourne last summer and left with a migraine headache, then this is the opposite of that. Once the action gets to New York, and the villain character fully puts his set-up of Wick into motion (how Wick didn't see it coming is a flaw, but I'll let that go for now on this viewing), everyone is out to get Wick and the intensity comes from all of the staging. I can't stress enough that if you love action direction that has clarity and UMPH to it, this is your kind of movie. Not to mention there's the added bonus of having Laurence Fishburne as some pigeon-cooper type who also has his own underground homeless(!) criminal element going on. I wished there was more of him, as he plays this character with a perverse joy to everything (even how he wears a robe), but hopefully there's more to see in part 3 - and yes, there will be a part 3, I can assure you.
The highlight I must mention before I wrap this up: a sequence involving mirrors at a museum. Oh goodness is this spectacular work! Again, there's not exactly "story" here, but there is a progression of events and how the characters move in this environment feels less like a rip-off of a, I dunno, Enter the Dragon style climax than a part homage and then partly doing something else (at times the way the director uses color is absorbing too, like out of the best parts of Skyfall). I could watch this sequence over and over for how assured the staging is, how we always know where the characters are or, if we don't, it's not for too long, and how visceral the action is maintained in this setting. I could recommend the movie on this scene alone - that there are other set pieces that come close to its virtuosity makes it almost a must see.
To close, I don't want to rate this TOO highly; at the end of the day, John Wick Chapter Two is action junk, a comic book with little on its mind but to get its guns-and-punches audience frothing at the mouth. But it keeps being an intriguing comic-book for adults, and it builds just enough from the first movie's quasi-mythology (once again Ian McShane is the "manager" of this hotel that is exclusively for hit men and criminals it would seem). This is a world that is not entirely meant to be in a reality, but creating its own, and that kept me interested despite the familiar beats.