Keanu Reeves is a bizarre phenomenon. He\u2019s been making movies since the mid-eighties and is 54 years old.\u00a0 Yet I think of him as basically Ted from Bill and Ted\u2019s Excellent Adventure.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same halting voice and basic appearance.\u00a0 In the interim he has starred in a number of money making movies, most notably The Matrix.\u00a0 And he has become an action movie hero.\u00a0 The John Wick movies are the latest extension of this venture.<\/p>\n
I watched John Wick probably a year after it was in the theaters.\u00a0 The premise was of course ridiculous.\u00a0 John is your basic retired uber-hitman.\u00a0 He gave up his hum-drum nine to five life of garroting and mangling the enemies of his New York Russian Mafia Crime Lord to live a peaceful idyllic life in his spectacular suburban estate with his beautiful but short-lived wife.\u00a0 She dies of cancer shortly before the movie\u2019s start but is thoughtful enough to have a puppy delivered to John near the opening scene.\u00a0 So, you get it, dead wife reaches beyond the grave and bestows gift of love to retired hitman?\u00a0 Memory of dead wife and gift she left him is most important thing in his life.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 Also, loves vintage sports cars and \u201969 Mustang is second most important thing in his life.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 The set up.\u00a0 Check.<\/p>\n
Somehow, completely coincidentally and without knowing who he\u2019s dealing with, the son of John Wick\u2019s crime lord ex-boss accidentally victimizes the now retired hitman and starts a vendetta by stealing his car and killing his dog.\u00a0 Well I guess it could have been more blatant.\u00a0 He might have gone for the trifecta and castrated Wick while he was at it.<\/p>\n
After this the film embarks on an odyssey of shooting, stabbing and punching pleasure.\u00a0 You\u2019d think after the first couple of dozen gangsters are dispatched that it would start to get boring and repetitive.\u00a0 But the hyper-kinetic fight scenes are strangely fascinating.\u00a0 It was as if you were watching one of those loops they include with a first-person shooter game that show how someone who has memorized the game can dispatch all the enemies one by one in incredible speed and precision.\u00a0 It\u2019s the extension of the concept seen at the end of the Matrix where Neo has gotten the hang of his abilities and is fighting Agent Smith with one hand held behind his back, parrying every punch without even looking because his reflexes are an order of magnitude faster than his opponent\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this goes on for the balance of the movie.\u00a0 The Russian Crime Lord is kind of entertaining and we are introduced to the Continental Hotel and Club that caters to hitmen and forbids them to kill each other on its grounds under penalty of membership termination (which coincidentally includes death).\u00a0 It\u2019s lots of fun and there are gold coins and lots of automatic weapons and views of iconic Manhattan locations.<\/p>\n
By the end of the movie, at least John\u2019s absorbed a lot of damage from fighting the dozens of hit men who stand between him and the Crime Lord that needs killing.\u00a0 So, you know it wasn\u2019t easy.\u00a0 And he finds a new dog.\u00a0 So, balance is restored to the universe and John Wick can go back into a peaceful retirement since everyone is dead.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s my opinion?\u00a0 Was it good.\u00a0 Well, obviously, it has to be compared by the standards of the genre it belongs in.\u00a0 It\u2019s an action adventure.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost a comic book movie.\u00a0 From that perspective, it\u2019s highly successful.\u00a0 It\u2019s as full of action as it\u2019s possible to imagine.\u00a0 The fight choreography is meticulous and the cinematography is highly effective.\u00a0 And he\u2019s only killing bad guys.\u00a0 He\u2019s the strong silent man bringing down vengeance on his enemies.\u00a0 He\u2019s the modern-day Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood but without the occasional complete sentence.<\/p>\n
I liked it.\u00a0 Admittedly it\u2019s a guilty pleasure.\u00a0 Basically, it\u2019s an atavistic response to injustice.\u00a0 Take justice into your own hands and clean house.\u00a0 Scratch the veneer and we\u2019re still just cavemen.\u00a0 Sure, we\u2019ve got indoor plumbing and 401K plans but the mindless primitive lurks right below the surface.\u00a0 Once you recognize that, you can jump right in and enjoy John Wick for what it is.\u00a0 High Octane Revenge.<\/p>\n