The Matrix Reloaded to The Matrix

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2017)

Very very good, maybe great, but not quite the original. The first was so fresh, and good as this one is the relentless auto-aim headshots get to be fatiguing and monotonous. It's a small complaint but seems to be a common reaction.
Stahelski elaborates more on the world created by the first, but some of the universe building comes off as gratuitous or even, oddly enough, mundane. A good example - when we're first introduced to the coins in the last movie, their implications are fascinating. There's a whole currency for this underground world of assassins? How much are they worth? How do you get them? In Chapter 2, there's a brief scene where John approaches Winston as he's inspecting new coins from a man who presumably mints them. Winston says, "Exquisite work, put them into circulation." It's a fun nod, but there's something about it that takes away from the world's mythos and turns it into boring matter-of-fact hit-man logistics.
The first movie's action mostly took place at night, and the same is true here. But while that was surprisingly clean and crisp visually, I found this entry to have more motion blur. Looking it up, both movies use the Arri Alexa, and I've noticed digital cinematography seems more prone to that problem, but it was just a minor disappointment, minor being the operative word. It's still miles ahead of the 10-cuts-a-second shaky cam epidemic plaguing modern action cinema.
Last small complaint. While John Wick suffers from the John McClane "real but still invincible" action hero dilemma, he's also a superhuman weapons handling expert to a fault. For example, every time Wick reloads and racks his gun, he does a secondary press check to ensure there's a bullet in the chamber. In the middle of a heated and fast paced shootout, this step seems excessive, time consuming, and unnecessary. It looks cool, I guess, but it didn't need to be done every time. A small case of tactical trumping practical.
I'm nitpicking. I know that, and the movie was very good. Sometimes it's just easier to list a few things wrong than everything right, and there is a lot right here. It's not the masterpiece the original was, and ends on a maddeningly inconclusive cliffhanger, but it absolutely beats out 98% of action movies from the last decade.
John Wick - 9.5/10 John Wick: Chapter 2 - 8/10