John Wick: Chapter 2
Director: Chad Stahelski
Talent: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ian McShane, Common
Released: 17th February
Keanu Reeves returns as the eponymous contract killer in a sequel that improves on almost every aspect of the surprise hit from 2014. John Wick: Chapter 2 is bigger, bloodier, and a hell of a lot of fun.
After tying up some loose ends from his previous adventure, Wick is contacted by Santino D’Antonio (Scamarcio), a Mafioso who has come to collect on a blood oath. Traveling to Rome, where he must eliminate the head of a powerful crime family, Wick soon finds himself pursued by the world’s deadliest assassins in a series of visceral and inventively choreographed set-pieces, full of headshots, knife fights, and some truly nasty use of office supplies. Returning director Chad Stahelski expands the comic book-inflected criminal underworld glimpsed in the first film to great effect, and Reeves, who performs the majority of his stunts, knows exactly how to play this sort of material. Based on this evidence, the already greenlit third chapter can’t come soon enough.
Words – Felipe Deakin