I Want to See John Wick 2, but...
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How so? I quite liked it. Stylish as all hell with some gorgeous locations and visuals, great music, well choreographed action, and more Keanu Reeves shooting people. Admittedly the plot is dumb as hell, but it's not like the first movies revenge premise was particularly grand either.Casual Shinji said:
I genuinely struggle to see why someone who liked the first movie wouldn't like the second, which is basically just more of the same thing the first movie offered.
First of all, there's no motivation. The plot of the first movie was silly, but it completely acknowledges that, and we as the audience could get behind why John Wick'd be pissed off. The sequel has nothing, except 'Yeah, I guess you're gonna have to go kill some more people, cuz reasons'. John Wick by himself isn't the least bit interesting. What made him engaging is that this solemn badass would go on a rampage of revenge because someone killed his dog. It was stupid while at the same time being sweet, and endearing.The Madman said:
Secondly, it presents its lore as way more interesting then it actually is. In the first movie the lore was a nice bit of window dressing that was organically implemented into the script. We got this tiny peak behind the curtain. The sequel just goes full exposition, and can't seem to shut up about how awesome and intriguing it's underground society is. It really isn't.
And lastly, the action sequences sucked. Nothing creative was done with the shoot-outs. It was just Keanu shooting a bunch of dudes, then he wrestles one guy to the ground while he shoots some more dudes, then he executes ground-dude. That seriously happens during every fucking shoot-out, you could've turned it into a drinking game. And I know people like to joke about Keanu Reeves not aging, but the guy is still over 50 and here it shows. He's just sluggish and lumbering and not as swift as his character is supposed to be.
The only good thing in the movie was Ian McShane, but besides him John Wick 2 couldn't have been more mindnumbingly boring if it was presented to me with stickfigures on paper.
I never argued that. Besides, just because old movies are good, does that mean there's no point in making new ones?Samtemdo8 said:
You can also skip the first 15 minutes.
Although you don't need to watch the first movie. While the world building is top notch, the actual story is pretty bare bones, relying a lot more on actors charisma and the intelligence of the audience to sell the characters and motivations. All you need to know is: John Wick is a coldblooded badass who wants to be left alone, and most of the world is fine with it. The son of a mob boss messes with him almost by accident, in a rush of immature bravado. What follows is the typical revenge story, where a one-man-army deals with countless people, to the point the original offense feels irrelevant.
The thing that makes John Wick uniquer is the world it builds, full of interesting characters, cool locations and rules that everyone (even mob bosses or badass assassins) respect, while they are never spelled out for the audience. It makes it feel a lot bigger than the point of view of the adventure of the protagonist. Think of it as Death Wish set in one of those "alternate modern world" fictions (like RPG settings like Vampire: The Masquerade or Dark Matter)
Although you don't need to watch the first movie. While the world building is top notch, the actual story is pretty bare bones, relying a lot more on actors charisma and the intelligence of the audience to sell the characters and motivations. All you need to know is: John Wick is a coldblooded badass who wants to be left alone, and most of the world is fine with it. The son of a mob boss messes with him almost by accident, in a rush of immature bravado. What follows is the typical revenge story, where a one-man-army deals with countless people, to the point the original offense feels irrelevant.
The thing that makes John Wick uniquer is the world it builds, full of interesting characters, cool locations and rules that everyone (even mob bosses or badass assassins) respect, while they are never spelled out for the audience. It makes it feel a lot bigger than the point of view of the adventure of the protagonist. Think of it as Death Wish set in one of those "alternate modern world" fictions (like RPG settings like Vampire: The Masquerade or Dark Matter)
If it makes you feel better, no animals were harmed in the making of the films. Obviously.
But the dead puppy scene isn't done graphically, but it's still awful and is meant to make you empathize with John Wick and want to kill the bad guys. So it succeeds on that front. Basically both movies can be summed up as Keanu killing people for 2 hours. Which if that's all you're looking for- you're in luck. But it's still so silly and unrealistic it's almost funny.
Why is the criminal underworld currency gold fucking doubloons? Not to mention the way the criminal hierarchy has a strict code of ethics. You know, those things most criminals famously don't have. I was going to give it a recommendation, but now I'm starting to talk myself out of it.
But the dead puppy scene isn't done graphically, but it's still awful and is meant to make you empathize with John Wick and want to kill the bad guys. So it succeeds on that front. Basically both movies can be summed up as Keanu killing people for 2 hours. Which if that's all you're looking for- you're in luck. But it's still so silly and unrealistic it's almost funny.
Why is the criminal underworld currency gold fucking doubloons? Not to mention the way the criminal hierarchy has a strict code of ethics. You know, those things most criminals famously don't have. I was going to give it a recommendation, but now I'm starting to talk myself out of it.
Not sure I agree fully, but fair enough. Action I felt was about the same as the first film while motivation wise I though the plot worked well enough; someone trying to force an unwilling Wick back in the murdering business through whatever means necessary, and I liked that as a result it felt like Keanu was just a boiling cauldron of frustration and anger throughout. I was extremely glad that the plot didn't just give in and kill his dog again, that would have been cheap.Casual Shinji said:
Also I liked the extra little glimpses of Wicks underground world. Like what's with the usage of old tech and all the pinup girl operators? No clue, but it was cool.
I will say however that the ending was a bit off for me. It genuinely felt to me like the end was building towards a 'suicide by assassin' ending with a thoroughly downtrodden Wick waiting in the rubble of his old house for them to come and get him. Hell when what's-his-name-hotel-guy showed up I even figured "Oh, so he's going to take care of the dog for Wick, that's nice!". It would have been a bit of a depressing ending, but one I felt would have worked absolutely perfectly and which I'd be amazed if it wasn't an extra on the home release because with the way things were going it has to have been considered.
But instead apparently everyone in New York is an assassin now who also happens to practice at doing that freeze flash mob thing that was popular for a while? Why? To impress John Wick? He already knows. That was a bit silly, but I guess you gotta get that sequel bait in somehow since they decided not to kill off their main character.
Although I will add that a John Wick 3 where he's on the run and in hiding could be a super cool chance to highlight yet more beautiful and exotic locations.
To me, that is kind of the appeal of the setting: How it has an entire world under the "real" world, with its own set of codes, organizations and even economy.Ebola_chan said:
And also, not the entire criminal hierarchy has a strict code, only those that are profesional about it. It is the difference between William Dafoe, and someone that kills another guy in a dark corner... The setting still has its fair share of thieves, smugglers and rapists, but they don't factor in this parallel world, they are less than mobs. In fact, a lot of the plot of the first movie is triggered by a boy that is either unaware or uninterested in that code and acts like a "regular criminal".
John Wick Chapter 2 is a movie that didn't need to exist, much like the Matrix sequels.
As a standalone movie the original would have been remembered as a cult classic. With the sequels, it's only going to be remembered as the decent one of a trilogy.
As a standalone movie the original would have been remembered as a cult classic. With the sequels, it's only going to be remembered as the decent one of a trilogy.
I was mostly into the movie. But then...
Everyone is an assassin...EVERYONE! My god, at the end I expected to see the baby in the stroller look menacingly at Wick while reaching for a gun... I was mildly annoyed at all the oblivious people through the film as people are killing eachother shooting everywhere, and bleeding on everything, cause the obliviousness of the common person in such films is a huge pet peeve of mine, but I guess it was explained because EVERYONE WAS AN ASSASSIN ANYWAYS! That honestly killed most of my enjoyment, cause it was one step too far for my suspension of disbelief
I personally liked it.Saelune said:
I didn't see it as everyone was an assassin, just that most everyone was part of the underworld in some way, that crime was actually the way of the world and that the power and reach of these criminals was far stronger than even that of your average government official. The message seemed more that he was exiled from the civilized crime syndicate, and to avoid working with him, as he's fair game amongst anyone, with no contractual obligations to be treated with or excused. I also like the idea that we'll see him as some grizzled outcast, living in the wilderness, killing people as they come to kill him. Setting traps for anyone that comes close to him, and just trying to live his life as peacefully as he can. I don't know, it had me excited.
Ultimately, I think they were creative enough with this movie that it works well in tandem with the first one. The first one in my opinion had better characters and dialogue, but this one really amped up the action, with creative scenes of John killing people trying to kill him. Also, the cinematography was great, and the feeling almost felt like a reverse James Bond in this movie.
It doesn't necessarily mean that literally everyone is part of the underworld, but that it is just a very far reaching and strong network, and that you have no idea who is or isn't part of it. I'm sure his wife wasn't part of it all, hence why he wanted to get out before the events of either movie. Maybe I worded it poorly, but it felt less like everyone in the world is part of it, but that the influence and strength of the underworld is much stronger than even John knew. It may have even been possible that everyone in that park was brought there by Ian McShane's character to show John what he was looking at, the kind of fight he would have to fight. It's not fully explained, so it really could mean a dozen different things, so the idea probably should have been better shown by the movie, but that's the issue with this one, because it seems to be a set up for more movies, with the first one having just been set as mostly a stand alone film.Saelune said:
Saelune said:
While that didn't kill my enjoyment I, did raise an eyebrow when I thought about it. The flash mob at the end was one thing, that gave me a solid sense of "Wow, that's a lot of people, John could totally die right now" but the ending where he's getting mean looks from *everyone* when he's running wherever, at first it was cool but then I'm like "That's *a lot* of people." I get that it's a very powerful syndicate with power in every corner of the world but heck, that's a lot of people.
Also it makes me wonder if Hobo With A Shotgun is some kind of spin-off, hmm.
Also it makes me wonder if Hobo With A Shotgun is some kind of spin-off, hmm.
I can totally go for that, like you said, it's not clear so I'm just gonna wait for the next one, I just wanted to say your words have credence.klaynexas3 said:
Anyway.
To finally respond to the OP: as been said but I don't want to quote another person, it's not as bad as you think. I mean, it's not pretty, but they don't stomp the puppy into paste or anything like that.
If you want to see the original but really don't want to see that scene, just skip it, you'll know when it's coming; you won't forget John's motivation because they bring it up a couple times.
Extra-Ordinary said:
The idea that the homeless are mostly or even entirely actually part of it is the cool version of the idea. That was where it should have tapered off at, cause it does give that sense of massive intricate underworld where not everything is what it seems, but it still feels secretive and subversive. But I dont want to think every household has its own version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith going on inside.