John Wick

No action movie is complete without a proper villain, and we haven’t seen a more thoroughbred action movie than John Wick in a decade. Unfortunately, its bad guy is a nice, puppy-dog-eyed thrift store uncle. This incomprehensible casting failure is not helped by the direction, which on the one hand wants the audience to be moved by Wick’s wife dying from cancer or his puppy being mercilessly killed, but also tries to entertain with a detached perspective and cynical jokes. This creates a strange emotional mishmash which, however, is rescued from being B-movie absurdity by its cool dark style, great super-brutal action scenes, Keanu Reeves’ spectacular avenger and a few screenwriting ideas that add some refreshing comic-book elements (a hotel for killers). All of this makes me raise my rating to three and half stars. (10/22/2014)

The admirable purity of the genre (the filmmaking enthusiasm is gushing from it) doesn't quite match the script, which doesn't limp in motivations or dialogue (on the contrary, the simplicity is a good thing). Yet, paradoxically, I would have liked to see even more broken arms, and gunshots to the head, and overall I would have actually gone a bit harder in the fanboy exhibition because the great technical aspect encourages it like few other things. A weaker four stars. I'll be happy to watch selected moments again. (02/15/2015)

A couple of points for the action, zero points for the story. The problem is that it has some scenes that are clearly meant to be funny, together with scenes that are mean to be really serious. Unfortunately, the serious moments are so stupid (Keanu cradling his dead dog to the sounds of sad music) that I couldn’t help but laugh. But that stylish action scene in the club is enough to make me like this film and make me willing to give it an above-average rating of six points out of ten. (01/14/2015)

Dog breeders are major assholes, especially when the Russian underworld nicknames them Baba Jaga. The screenplay is a surreal jumble from head to toe, although it does contain some pretty cool ideas (unions for hired killers). As a stunt specialist, Chad Stahelski doesn't worry about any of it and deals with what he has to work with. The dog will break your heart, Keanu looks like a reincarnation of Satan from beginning to end, and the characters are not just flat - they have been run over by a steamroller. Fortunately, the truly infernal pensive dialogues, which come off as a compilation of bad comic speech bubbles, are balanced by a fairly decent portion of foresight and even larger portions of action. Here we can see that Chad knows what he's filming (wonderfully rhythmic threshing in a disco club, where the tempo of the fight is combined with changes on the dance floor), and sometimes he even seems to have a solid command of film language (wordless collage in the exhibition, solidly-timed jokes). Unfortunately, in the dialogues, he loses his way and he absolutely fails in escalating the film (both Russian villains are worthless at their core). Here we have a completely absurd story, presented in the style of a dark fateful spectacle with a sufficient portion of foresight and an insufficient portion of self-censorship. Either you will enjoy it to the fullest as action junkies (this is what Max Payne might have been like), or you will get through it with a mixture of amusement and grimaces. At its core, it's actually a terribly dumb mess. (10/15/2014)

There's too much hype around John Wick. It's definitely a perfect, adrenaline-powered revenge with a great Keanu Reeves, a great dark atmosphere , but it has it's pros and cons. I personally never bothered with logical flaws, but when Reeves takes down every opponent on a shot without hesitation and suddenly the main scumbag shows up within range and he can't kill him with five shots just because it would spoil the plot seems very stupid and ill thought out to me. When a movie establishes some order and rules, it should follow them. But this is only a minor complaint for me, I was more bothered by the fact that the action didn't add any innovation and was mostly the same every time just spiced up with a different headshot, from a different angle or a quick disarm. I was a bit disappointed, if I compare it with The Raid 2, where you look forward to every new action scene, because you didn't know what was coming and when it appeared on the scene you were pleasantly shocked, it doesn't work here. Maybe I'm too influenced by Asia and sound strict but that's how I feel. But there are plenty of good things here. The light humour is nice and the surprising brutality is more than juicy, but I don't feel up to a fifth star. That said, a solid 75% goes to John Wick, and it's probably the best actioner from the US this year. (10/30/2014)