(Even
though I will do my best not to say them, spoiler alert just in case.)
It’s been a while since we’ve seen Keanu Reeves in a
leading role. How do I know this? Because everyone on the internet still talks
about him being in The Matrix, and while the first one was pretty awesome
actually, the sequels dropped the ball massively. I’m not sure if it was those
movies that sunk him, but even Keanu has stated that the offers to star in
blockbuster films have dried up, so it wouldn’t surprise me. I for one am glad
to see him back in action, as after watching Bill and Ted again recently I
realized that he is actually quite a good actor. Yes he kind of does the whole,
I wanna call it the blank stare thing a tad often but be honest it basically
works awesomely for him (Kristen Stewart needs to take some notes.) So how does
Keanu do in this latest offering? Let’s find out shall we?
Plot Summary – John Wick (Keanu Reeves (obviously)) is
a retired hitman who has just lost his wife to disease. When her final gift in
the form of a dog shows up, John welcomes the animal and the next day takes it
out for a drive. At a gas station, the son of a Russian gangster makes him an
offer for his car, which John declines. He and his goons break in that night
and both take the car and kill the dog. When the rest of the gang finds out
what he did, they plan on how to stop John who vows to come after him.
Pros – Where to start? Keanu is awesome first off. The
death of both his wife and the dog are close enough to the story that you can
see it from space just how pissed off he really is. The cinematography is great
too, as it makes very heavy use of darker colours with some occasional bright
spots as to not feel too stale. The rest of the cast is pretty good too,
normally in films like these they are either underutilized or overly used but
under developed, and with the back story given to John in the film and how
everyone acts both to and around him, it sort of makes up for any minor blank
spots by having you basically just fill in the blanks yourself as to who they
are and how they know him. There’s only really one secondary character that gets
used very briefly but even then his usage doesn’t feel cheap. The way the world
works too is very cool, as its all underground places and services that use
these mysterious gold coins as currency. It sort of makes you feel like he’s
living out an arcade game and he just keeps using tokens to keep going. Come to
think of it, even though this isn’t based on a video game, its hyper kinetic,
colourful, and smartly written enough that it does make me think of a video
game type story (all of a sudden now I understand why John Wick was made a
playable character in pay day 2.) Shit if they ever give this movie its own
game I’m playing it just on principle alone.
Cons – Cons? We don’t have any stinking cons here.
Final Score – 10/10
Out of the three one man army movies I’ve personally
seen this year (the other two being The Equalizer and A Walk Amongst The
Tombstones) this is not only the best one, but the film that they both should’ve
been (you can also bet Tak3n’s bar has just been raised.) And you know what? Even
though you can see where the story will go, this movie is just smart and well
done enough that any minor hiccups can be forgiven. Once in a while, you just
need to see a film about a man kicking a lot of ass, and this is the movie that
does that this year.
Now I know I said I’d do a Snowpiercer review on Thursday,
but a meeting came up so that’s been bumped to Monday. I also want to say that
now that I’m working at a theatre, unless I get lucky with my schedule, I might
not be able to get new movie reviews out until later in the week, but I will
always let you know when they will come out and will do my best to tell you if
those times change. I think my next review will most likely be Horns next
weekend but I’m not sure if it’s playing nearby yet. But until then, I’ll see
you folks, at the movies.
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