I was lucky enough to be invited to an advance screening of the latest entry in Keanu Reeve’s hyper-violent action series. The film itself is coming out on Friday, so I will avoid anything spoiler-y in this (short) review. Suffice to say, this film is a very decent sequel and features probably the most impressive action setpieces in the franchise so far. And it is also – perhaps surprisingly – a ridiculously beautiful film in terms of design and cinematography. I think the cinematography – with its vivid, painterly use of lighting, colour and geometry – impressed me even more than the action.
In terms of story… well, to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever particularly warmed to the John Wick universe – perhaps because it’s hard to sympathise with a world pretty much exclusively populated by ruthless killers. There’s only a couple of characters in there who you can potentially feel some empathy and sympathy for. But really, “story” is almost irrelevant in a film like this – it’s more an enabling mechanism for some insanely balletic (and ballistic) violent action sequences.
Keanu Reeves is not the greatest actor (and he’s not helped by a somewhat clunky and cliched script), but he’s still very charismatic and he absolutely sells the professional hyper-proficient killer role. There’s a host of great actors surrounding him, with special props to Bill Skarsgard’s gloriously despicable main villain and Donnie Yen’s blind assassin (who impresses both with his martial arts prowess and a surprisingly nuanced performance).
But did I talk about the action scenes? Because that’s really the reason I can unreservedly recommend this film for. THE ACTION IS COMPLETELY INSANE. There’s three main action sequences in this film – and they’re all rather nuts in terms of scale and duration. Remember the night club fight sequence in the first film? Yeah, that’s the equivalent of a fraction of just one of the sequences in this latest sequel. The final battle, in Paris, is a non-stop, set-piece after set-piece action cavalcade. It’s insanely brutal and god knows how long it took to stage all this stuff. It’s probably the most intense martial-arts/gunplay I’ve seen since the glory days of John Woo’s Hong Kong movies. Like those movies, the fighting veers more towards style than realism in places. That’s not necessarily a criticism though.
So, altogether – this is a very, very beautifully made (seriously – it looks gorgeous!) hyper-violent action movie. I was thoroughly entertained. Do I think it needs another sequel after this? Probably not. But would I watch one? Oh, of course!!
