Photo Courtesy of John Wick Movie
Story by Steve Barnum / Staff Writer
Keanu Reeves is an unstoppable force in John Wick: Chapter 2, which was released in theaters Friday and has grossed $11 million on opening day alone.
The 52-year-old actor reprises his role as John Wick, a retired hitman who is forced back into the crime underworld after everything is taken from him.
From start to finish, John Wick: Chapter 2 never slows down. The film is packed to the brim with action, and you will not be let down if you were a fan of the first movie.
The film manages to one-up its predecessor and leaves you wanting more. Reeves commands every scene and makes the audience invest in John Wick’s survival no matter what.
The premise is nearly identical to Chapter 1. John Wick tries to go back to living a normal life, gets pulled back in and kills everyone until he reaches his goal. However, the world in which John Wick lives gives the audience more to feed off of, making the recycled plot barely noticeable.
People that have seen the first movie should know what they are getting themselves into. This is a pure hyper-violent action movie to its core, but there is an element of mystery surrounding John Wick’s world and a society of killers.
Chapter 2 reveals a little more about how the framework of this secret society works. The film doesn’t dive too deep, but just enough to make you want to know just how extensive this hitman underworld really is.
The film also manages to make its premise believable. Yeah, John Wick might stack up an unbelievably high body count, but the society cleans up after him. So what if these people that he kills are also highly trained hitmen? Reeves gives off such a strong presence in the film that viewers will believe no one is better at killing than John Wick.
Blown up, shot, stabbed, flung out of a crashed car and knocked senseless, one would expect John Wick to have died a thousand times over after being put through such danger, but he just walks it off with the ease of already having convinced the audience that he would undoubtedly do just that. Reeves powerfully conveys how much John Wick’s personal pain and his exhaustion after killing his hundredth henchmen, but he does such a fantastic job of portraying John Wick as a man who will go through hell and back to accomplish his end goal.
The audience is driven to the edge of their seats to see if he achieves his goal or not because it seems like an impossible task. All the bodies that John Wick stacks up don’t even matter because the audience feels that he was wronged. You are rooting for him to kill everyone, for him to come out on top the entire time and he doesn’t let you down.
If you like action, go see this movie. If you like underdogs, go see this movie. If you like headshots, go see this movie.
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