John Wick: Chapter 2 | Little White Lies

John Wick: Chap­ter 2

06 Feb 2017 / Released: 17 Feb 2017

A man wearing a black leather jacket stands on a city street at night, with a yellow taxi cab visible in the background.
A man wearing a black leather jacket stands on a city street at night, with a yellow taxi cab visible in the background.
4

Anticipation.

Slick Wick is back.

4

Enjoyment.

In flight, this slays.

3

In Retrospect.

Bigger isn’t always better, but Chad Stahelski proves himself an action force to be reckoned with.

Though not as svelte as before, Chad Sta­hel­s­ki and Keanu Reeves still deliv­er big with this awe­some action-ballet.

Long before it final­ly saw a UK release in April 2015, there were whis­pers from across the pond that we ought to get ready, that John Wick was com­ing. Fast, lean and a mod­el of nar­ra­tive econ­o­my, the film had seem­ing­ly come out of nowhere, stealth-attack­ing with a bru­tal effi­cien­cy and pur­pose befit­ting its suit­ed and boot­ed pup­py avenger.

The first film’s strengths lie in the con­ci­sion of its world-build­ing and the wit with which it estab­lish­es its under­ground crim­i­nal net­work. The broad strokes used to paint its grief-strick­en protagonist’s back­sto­ry cast an icon­ic sil­hou­ette, even while play­ful­ly nip­ping at the heels of pan­tomime camp. The role fit Keanu Reeves’ brand of cus­tomised zen like an impec­ca­bly tai­lored glove – hard­ly sur­pris­ing for an actor so con­sis­tent­ly under­rat­ed. Per­haps the film’s abil­i­ty to fly below-the-radar lay with its untest­ed direc­tor, Reeves’ for­mer Matrix stunt dou­ble, Chad Sta­hel­s­ki. It’s cer­tain­ly a rare thrill to wit­ness a first-timer han­dle action beats with such con­sum­mate regard for the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the frame over the cut.

Such def­er­ence to the aes­thet­ics of action reach­es new heights in this sequel’s extend­ed pro­logue. Play­ing like a stand­alone short that effec­tive­ly bridges the two films – reit­er­at­ing Wick’s boogey­man cre­den­tials and love for his ride – it’s an impec­ca­bly nego­ti­at­ed tour de force of move­ment and space. What bet­ter sign that you’re in safe hands than an open­ing shot that sees a Buster Keaton short pro­ject­ed onto the side of a building?

It might be a bold move to acknowl­edge the mas­ter of screen phys­i­cal­i­ty sec­onds ahead of your own action-bal­let, but it’s a fear­less state­ment of intent from Sta­hel­s­ki which he pro­ceeds to attack with jaw-drop­ping flu­id­i­ty and com­po­si­tion­al flair.

A man with a beard wearing a long black coat stands in front of a wooden structure.

If noth­ing else in John Wick: Chap­ter 2 reach­es the gid­dy heights of its open­ing gam­bit, it remains a treat; if one beset by famil­iar issues of fran­chise-bait­ing sequelitis. With a run­ning time that tips over the two hour mark, it’s a more well-fed beast than its pre­de­ces­sor. The expan­sion of its glob­al crime syn­di­cate serves up a series of neat con­cep­tu­al riffs, each lov­ing­ly detailed (shout out to pro­duc­tion design­er, Kevin Kavanaugh) and tonal­ly consistent.

Yet this often comes at the expense of the film’s propul­sion, not least when a late cameo from Lau­rence Fish­burne stops it dead in its tracks. Gone is the first film’s svelte sin­gu­lar­i­ty of pur­pose, where world-build­ing served up grace notes that accen­tu­at­ed or relieved nar­ra­tive and emo­tion­al dri­ve. Now the world is the thing, and all of it is out for John Wick.

Gareth Evans’ bloat­ed sequel to The Raid makes for a fit­ting com­par­i­son, but where that film deliv­ered a fero­cious sense of esca­la­tion in its set-pieces, John Wick: Chap­ter 2 has one eye clear­ly trained on Chap­ter 3. When the fight scenes come, they’re staged with remark­able clar­i­ty and inge­nu­ity, even if there are only so many face­less goons one man can take out with­out the threat of rep­e­ti­tion. An inter­rupt­ed rough-and-tum­ble with Com­mon proves a high­light, and the fabled pen­cil gets an out­ing, but a final show­down with Ruby Rose that tips its hat at The Lady From Shang­hais hall of mir­rors pulls the knock­out punch that ren­dered The Raid 2’s mean­der­ings forgiven.

The frus­trat­ing lack of nar­ra­tive res­o­lu­tion which sig­nals fur­ther instal­ments sug­gests a greater empha­sis on com­ic book excess may well be on the cards; the tracks this sequel lays hard­ly point to a return to the first film’s econ­o­my. Even so, if Sta­hel­s­ki can namecheck Buster Keaton and deliv­er, John Wick: Chap­ter 2 offers enough rea­son to believe he can run his own gaunt­let, wher­ev­er it might lead.

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