Review: ‘John Wick: Chapter 2’: he’s still got it

Action movies have been on the decline ever since the genre’s beloved stars grew too old to be feasible machines of slaughter that our childhoods depicted them to be. More often, these tired superstars just want to relive the good ol’ days of running and gunning even when we don’t want them to. It was through such a lens that the casual moviegoer saw John Wick as a dismissible action flick in 2014.

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As we know now, John Wick didn’t feature a washed-up Keanu Reeves trying to crawl back into the limelight. It was a masterpiece of gun-fu that thrilled its audience from beginning to conclusion. It started with a simple revenge plot, but ended with a burning opportunity for a sequel.

John Wick: Chapter 2 is burdened with a responsibility: where can we go from here? Wick has avenged his puppy’s murder. What else is left but for him to retire, as he always wanted? Like its clamoring audience, someone wants the so-called Boogeyman back. We wanted the series to explore the international league of assassins that the first movie so casually introduced. That’s exactly what we’re getting.

Chapter 2 starts immediately where the first film left off. Wick has avenged his puppy, but he’s still missing his stolen Mustang. Our first scenes drop us right into the action as Wick has tracked down his car to a den of gangsters. The movie wastes no time in reintroducing its main hero and his gun-toting kung-fu skills. It even goes far as redoing its iconic badass introduction of last time. You know it: where the henchman goes “sir, it’s John Wick” and the boss just does that crestfallen “…oh.” Oh, and they mention that time when Wick killed three men with a pencil again albeit in a light-hearted manner. It brings us back to the familiar: Wick is back in action.

Wick, of course, leaves the scene intact with a not-so-intact car. He’s free to retire again. And with a new dog, too! That is, until an old “friend” and fellow assassin visits him and calls in a favor Wick owes him. He’s forced back into the industry whether he likes it or not. It’s just part of their assassin’s code.

His client is the Italian gangster Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and his target is D’Antonio’s sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini). Why? Because Santino wants to claim Gianna’s seat at the criminal underground’s High Table and gain control of New York. Unlike the first film’s Russian mobsters, Chapter 2 introduces antagonistic assassins and their strict hierarchy.

Chapter 2 explodes the lore the first film started. We get more screen time with the Continental, an assassin’s hotel with a suave, smooth-talking manager (Ian McShane) and a deadpan concierge (Lance Reddick). We get a homeless network of assassins headed by the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne). We get more assassins, most notably those played by Common and Ruby Rose. We are always made aware of the assassins’ two rules: never commit violence on Continental grounds and never back out of a favor you owe another assassin. Like a smoking Chekhov’s gun, the film plays with these elements to its own delight. The film’s worldbuilding is expansive, just as how a sequel should go. It isn’t the same-old, same-old. It’s a brand-new film that still tightly ties back to the first film. It’s exactly what it wants to be: the second chapter.

Despite all its worldbuilding, Chapter 2 is as self-referential as it is action-packed. It’s aware that action films can often be ridiculous. It doesn’t shy away from making subtle jabs at the genre. How about a fighting scene in a crowded room where Wick and Common have to secretly shoot at each other with a silenced pistol? How about a scene where Wick actually kills people with a pencil, in reference to the series’ most infamous quip? Chapter 2 knows how to have fun.

Action is still its biggest draw. Much like the first film, Chapter 2’s fight choreography is well thought out with extraordinary gun-fu that isn’t too ridiculous. Its fight scenes are fought within the moving world, rather than “arenas” that the film conveniently sets the fighters up in. Its gun scenes feel like an arcade shooter you’d want to following along with. The breathtaking action lets up only when it wants to build up for the next shoot-out. Fused with its worldbuilding and the jokes, Chapter 2 leaves you breathless but not wanting.

Except for its final minute, which directly alludes to a third film in the series. Chapter 3? Yes, please!