Review of John Wick (2014) by Filippo S — 27 Jun 2015

TL;DR: The ads were better.

I was so hopeful for this one. I've always enjoyed Keanu Reeves generally under-played roles even in "chick flicks" like The Lake House. And, for the most part, Reeves put on a good show. Michael Nyqvist was also lots of fun - his reaction to the healthy smoothie offered him by Willem Dafoe's assassin character is priceless. The fight scenes were also reasonable; more realistic than - well let's face it, than The Matrix - yet in some ways more elegant since it seemed far more possible that humans could move that way.

The real problem with the movie is the poor cinematography and editing, and an unreasonably weak plot. Many action films these days are able to stylize their shots thanks to cheap, high-quality technology. What they needed for John Wick was to think in terms of a graphic novel; this seems to work very well for some films. Capture key images from the graphic novel, making them play out in time as a scene. There were many instances where that would have greatly helped John Wick.

Editing was also a problem. There were several times when the cuts were so brusque and mistimed that it became tiring to watch, and very distracting.

The one problem with the story was that they didn't come anywhere near developing Wick's background well enough to make the audience accept he was justified to seek revenge. In general terms, the story pretty much parallels The Punisher, but the latter's 2004 incarnation with Thomas Jane in the lead role was a far, far better rendered version. If someone's going to build a story, like John Wick's, to be fundamentally so typical in the genre, then one had better make damned sure it's constructed with enough detail and attention to make us believe it. They didn't do that with John Wick.