john wick review

John Wick 2: Humanity, Off-Camera on a Smoking Break

John Wick 2: Humanity, Off-Camera on a Smoking Break

The climactic gunfight of John Wick: Chapter Two takes place in a labyrinth of mirrors, an art exhibition in New York. Having been dragged (away from playing fetch with his dog and seeing perfunctory flashbacks of his dead wife) back into a comical underworld of assassins—again—Wick, in a turn of events that will surprise no one, now hunts down the man who brought him back. We see Keanu Reeves as Wick enter, our view of him steady and focused as mirrored doors close behind him, bathed in cold blue light. Opposing mirrors make Wick appear to stretch into infinite (and infinitely diminishing) copies in the background, receding into itself and into insularity. Reeves’ reflections are an infinite number of points in a nerve-rackingly enclosed space. Is this a comment by Chad Stahelski and Derek Kolstad, the director and writer of John Wick: Chapter Two, respectively, on the necessarily diminishing returns of a sequel to such a complete first film? ...