John Wick: Chapter 2

It’s a new Russian villain! The brother of the previous one.

This movie admirably dispenses with exposition in a couple of minutes, and then we’re in a car chase.

The cinematography on this one seems a lot better than the first one. The first one was relentlessly colour graded, making everything look rather blah, but here we seem to have actual colours. And while the action is still happening in dark environments, you can see what’s happening (instead of guessing, like in the first movie). Did this have a way higher budget than the first movie?

Yup — according to imdb, this was $40M, while the first was $20M. So they had more money for lighting.

Oh, OK. In this one we get the touchy feely stuff after a bit of action…

So who’s gonna kill the dog this time?

Oh, the villain this time isn’t Russian, but Italian? Or something?

Cool.

I assume this is a composite shot (because the elements just seem to fantastic), but it looks really good.

Heh heh. They’re going full Bond nonsense in this one?

It’s kinda shamelessly stupid, and I like that.

Rawk!

OK, this bit is like watching somebody play a video game, which isn’t great.

This really has spectacular use of location. It feels extremely… there… and it’s very pretty.

The first movie had some pretensions towards realism (however slight), but this is pure fantasy land, which is a lot more fun.

Brian Blessed!

But now it went from pleasantly absurd to silly. One gun? With seven bullets? But why?

This movie looks better than movies that cost five times as much. I guess it’s because they actually built these fun sets instead of just CGI-ing it in?

It’s really an enjoyable if nonsensical movie, but it’s too bad they couldn’t come up with an ending, and instead it just say that it’s going to continue in the next film. Isn’t he even going to be able to change his shirt before the next film?

Anyway, it’s one of those extremely rare sequels that are better than the original.

John Wick 2: The Wickening. Chad Stahelski. 2017. ⚄