After a stylishly violent prologue of retired assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves, so immobile he makes Bruce Willis look like Danny Kaye) retrieving his stolen muscle car from cartoonish Russian mobster Tarasov (cartoonish Swedish character actor Peter Stormare), director Chad Stahelski and screenwriter Derek Kolstad — both returning from JOHN WICK — get down to business.
Wick is drawn back into the assassination game by an old acquaintance, Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), who needs John to whack his sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini). After initially refusing — and seeing his house destroyed — Wick takes the assignment, which leads to an Italian version of the assassin-friendly Continental hotel (run by Franco Nero!), a double cross, and a Dick Tracy rogue’s gallery of colorful killers riding Wick’s rear end.
Among the assassins seeking a $7 million bounty on Wick are a blond street musician with a pistol hidden in her violin, a huge Samoan, sexy mute Ares (Australian VJ Ruby Rose), and Gianna’s right hand Cassian (Common), whose casual shootout with silencers in a crowded subway station is a witty highlight. You would be amazed how many freelance hitmen are hanging around New York City.
CHAPTER 2 expands the fascinating universe created in the first film, one in which assassins live by a strict code, trade in their own special currency, and receive assignments via switchboard operators and 1940s typewriters. The world of John Wick is also beautifully photographed in rainbow hues like a four-color comic book. The fact of the matter is that JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 is a better comic book movie than anything released by Marvel Films or DC to date, because Stahelski and Kolstad aren’t afraid to wallow in the genre’s inherent absurdities. John Wick is as much a superhero as Batman is, just with slightly less expensive tools.
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