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. (2014-10-22)

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. (2014-10-30)

Sorry, but I've already been age 15 a few times for me. John chose the wrong target from the beginning. He should have taken care of the screenwriter, but slowly because for God's sake, just don't kill him when you can torture him! And the torture needs a lot of creativity for that idiot to suffer and live for as long as possible. I'll give it one star for the actors who don't deserve a Boo! rating, but otherwise, I suffered from the very beginning of this film. Do action movies really have to be so stupid?? Overall impression: 20%. (2017-02-28)

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. (2015-02-15)

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. (2015-01-14)