As you know, I am an Uber Fan of the first movie, as uber as I can get with my apathetic brain (also uber hurt that Hayley Atwell doesn't like apathetic people, but who can blame her #randomsegue). And Kent's view of the movie is actually more of a selling point, as a man who doesn't care for Keanu. You see, of late, I am one of the Internet Many's who would likely be labelled Keanu's BF. Or at least BFF ? He is, of Internet Legend, just an uber (at this point, maybe the company should give me some beer money) nice guy and I am of a mind-state of late where Nice Guys are currently just needed. People acknowledge he is nice, confirm he is nice, and even make up stories to expand a legend of how much of a nice guy he is. His Nice has become a meme.
But putting that aside, putting aside why I will return to this franchise, despite my mild disappointment with the last, I am still a Big Fan. You don't get my disappointment from the emotion scraped words I put in that post, but you get the disenfranchised feeling I was left with. The movies depart from Wick himself, and float into the ether that is his world. This one pretty much leaves all reality behind and John becomes even more a caricature of who he was set up to be.
Baba Yaga cannot escape the consequences of what he has done. He killed a connected man's son in the first, he kills a Connected Man in the second. The escalation picks up, again, hours after the first but now John is ExCommunicado, removed from the privileged few (???) of killers for the High Table. The problem, the extreme problem with this movie is that there seems to no longer exist any world outside This World. There are no people other than The Killers. Its as if Neo was tossed into another Matrix, one that he tries to escape from via his actions. That, is probably Head Canon worth exploring.
But fuck, once again, this movie is so beautiful. The opening sequence, of John and a number of chasing assassins through a warehouse / museum of vintage weaponry is so cringe worthy, I pretty much broke my physical response to the thuds, thunks and squelches of John's attacks on his opponents. At this point, I realized that Keanu may get a resurrection of his movies in some distant version of a rep theatre, as interactive movies where people shout out their emotional responses, like we did with John Woo's The Killer.
The beauty carries throughout. From NYC to Casablanca (no, real Casablanca, not some metaphoric location) and back to NY. But story and character are dispensed with for the sake of Whoah. Along with a few hints of sequel-itis, the movie just ends up feeling familiar. We are expected to go along for the ride and not pay attention, but to just revel. And I might be able to do that, if not for the fact that the first movie chose to raise itself above Generic Action movie and make something substantial.
That said, so many elements continue to impress. Halle Berry's dogs are as incredible as John himself. Mark Dacascos's Japanese-not-Japanese character is so spot on, you cannot but mourn his ending. Even the nod to Blade Runner or kiosk sushi, which I doubt exists in Manhattan is so... world building. And every combat sequence is delightful, as it should have been. I just wish I could sit back and think about the movie and just revel, as I did in the first.
p.s. that poster is INCREDIBLE !!! So many are...
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