2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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This is my favorite film reviewer...just found him yesterday, he left Breitbart and can now be found elsewhere....here is his review of John Wick 2 with some thoughts on 80s action films, the decline of the action film in the 90s....and now John Wick ....
'John Wick Chapter 2' Review: The Art and Poetry of The Ultra-Violence
Many film critics hated the 80's. After all, they had just been spoiled by the Easy Rider/Raging Bull era of the auteur, where movies were real, and characters we real, and America had finally caught up to France's New Wave and Italy's neo-realism. And now here they were suffering through the ArnoldSlySeagalNorrisWillisClintJeanClaude-era of bulging muscles, catch-phrases, and the joys of the rocket launcher.
Sometime in the mid-nineties, those critics won a respite. Indie films were all the rage, our brawny heroes entered middle age, and rather than groom replacements, the movie industry somehow convinced itself that America wanted to move in what you might call, a more Metrosexual direction. Out went badass-sounding names like Stallone, Bruce, Bronson, Clint, and Chuck. It was now time for a new type of action hero, with a name like … Orlando Bloom?
God bless them, Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes tried their best. But not even the massive success of the ultimate genre-movie, "The Matrix," could snap Hollywood out of it.
And so the action movie withered, but not for lack of an audience; for it was during these dark years that "Road House" looped endlessly on cable TV and "The Deluxe-Special Edition DVD of Cobra" beckoned as an impulse buy in most every big-box store.
Meanwhile, Seagal owned the direct-to-video world, Stallone was plotting the most improbable action-comeback in movie history, and then, just after the turn of the century, the clouds parted, the sun returned, and guys with guy names -- Diesel! Statham! The ROCK! -- returned to drag us back to sanity.
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Circling back to my opening point, "John Wick" is art -- hey, if it makes you feel better, call it pop art, or pulp art, call it whatever you want -- to me it is nothing less than a flat-out cinematic masterpiece of storytelling, world-building, and the choreography of violence.
And the really good news......no shaky cam ....
As Kirk Lazarus might say, "Chapter 2" lacks some of the emotionality of the original -- the dead wife and dog are pretty much played out. This is more than made up for, though, with the expansion of the assassin universe, courtesy of a reunion between Neo and Morpheus.
Best of all, you can actually see everything.
The non-stop gun battles and MMA-style hand-to-hand combat are eloquently choreographed and photographed.
No one's hiding behind shaky-cams or hyper-editing. And at 52 years of age, Keanu Reeves still makes everything he does look absurdly easy.
'John Wick Chapter 2' Review: The Art and Poetry of The Ultra-Violence
Many film critics hated the 80's. After all, they had just been spoiled by the Easy Rider/Raging Bull era of the auteur, where movies were real, and characters we real, and America had finally caught up to France's New Wave and Italy's neo-realism. And now here they were suffering through the ArnoldSlySeagalNorrisWillisClintJeanClaude-era of bulging muscles, catch-phrases, and the joys of the rocket launcher.
Sometime in the mid-nineties, those critics won a respite. Indie films were all the rage, our brawny heroes entered middle age, and rather than groom replacements, the movie industry somehow convinced itself that America wanted to move in what you might call, a more Metrosexual direction. Out went badass-sounding names like Stallone, Bruce, Bronson, Clint, and Chuck. It was now time for a new type of action hero, with a name like … Orlando Bloom?
God bless them, Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes tried their best. But not even the massive success of the ultimate genre-movie, "The Matrix," could snap Hollywood out of it.
And so the action movie withered, but not for lack of an audience; for it was during these dark years that "Road House" looped endlessly on cable TV and "The Deluxe-Special Edition DVD of Cobra" beckoned as an impulse buy in most every big-box store.
Meanwhile, Seagal owned the direct-to-video world, Stallone was plotting the most improbable action-comeback in movie history, and then, just after the turn of the century, the clouds parted, the sun returned, and guys with guy names -- Diesel! Statham! The ROCK! -- returned to drag us back to sanity.
-----
Circling back to my opening point, "John Wick" is art -- hey, if it makes you feel better, call it pop art, or pulp art, call it whatever you want -- to me it is nothing less than a flat-out cinematic masterpiece of storytelling, world-building, and the choreography of violence.
And the really good news......no shaky cam ....
As Kirk Lazarus might say, "Chapter 2" lacks some of the emotionality of the original -- the dead wife and dog are pretty much played out. This is more than made up for, though, with the expansion of the assassin universe, courtesy of a reunion between Neo and Morpheus.
Best of all, you can actually see everything.
The non-stop gun battles and MMA-style hand-to-hand combat are eloquently choreographed and photographed.
No one's hiding behind shaky-cams or hyper-editing. And at 52 years of age, Keanu Reeves still makes everything he does look absurdly easy.
