JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2

2017 ‧ Crime film/Thriller ‧ 2h 2m

Release date: 17 February 2017 (India)

Director: Chad Stahelski

Film series: John Wick Film Series

Screenplay: Derek Kolstad

Production companies: Thunder Road Pictures, Lionsgate

Starring: Keanu Reeves , Common , Laurence Fishburne , Riccardo Scamarcio , Ruby Rose , John Leguizamo , Ian McShane

IMDB Ratings : 8.1/10

ABOUT

John Wick: Chapter 2 is a 2017 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by Chad Stahelski and written by Derek Kolstad. A sequel to the 2014 film John Wick, the plot follows hitman John Wick, who goes on the run after a bounty is placed on his head. It stars Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, John Leguizamo and Ian McShane, and marks the first collaboration between Reeves and Fishburne since appearing together in The Matrix trilogy.

Principal photography began on October 26, 2015, in New York City. The film premiered in Los Angeles on January 30, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 10, 2017. It received positive reviews from critics and has grossed $145 million worldwide.

PLOT

Legendary hitman John Wick is forced back out of retirement by a former associate plotting to seize control of a shadowy international assassins' guild. Bound by a blood oath to help him, John travels to Rome where he squares off against some of the world's deadliest killers.

RELEASE

John Wick: Chapter 2 premiered at Arclight Hollywood in Los Angeles on January 30, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 10, 2017, by Summit Entertainment.

In the United Kingdom, the film was granted a 15 certificate by the British Board of Film Classification, after 23 seconds of a bloody injury within a suicide scene were removed to avoid an 18 rating. The film opened in UK cinemas on February 17, 2017, and was distributed by Warner Bros., with co-production from Lionsgate studio Summit Entertainment.

Australia is one of the last major countries to receive the film on May 11.

BOX OFFICE

As of March 8, 2017, John Wick: Chapter 2 has grossed $84.3 million in the United States and Canada and $61.5 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $145.8 million. The film grossed $90.5 million in its first nine days of release, surpassing the entire theatrical gross of the first film ($88.8 million).

In the United States and Canada, the film opened alongside two other sequels, The Lego Batman Movie and Fifty Shades Darker, and was projected to gross around $20 million in its opening weekend. It earned $2.2 million from Thursday night previews at 2,400 theaters, an improvement over the $870,000 made by its predecessor. It made $11 million on its first day, nearly totaling the $14.4 million the first film made in its entire opening weekend. It went on to open to $30.4 million, more than double the opening weekend of the original film and finishing third at the box office behind The Lego Batman Movie ($53 million) and Fifty Shades Darker ($46.6 million). In its second weekend the film grossed $16.5 million (a drop of 45.8%), finishing 4th at the box office and making more in its second weekend than the original film made in its first.

CRITICAL RESPONSE

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on 169 reviews, and an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "John Wick: Chapter 2 does what a sequel should—which in this case means doubling down on the non-stop, thrillingly choreographed action that made its predecessor so much fun." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 75 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Scott Tobias of Uproxx said the film improved upon the original, writing: "For better or worse—though mostly for better—it’s a full-scale assault on the senses, constantly pushing itself to greater feats of excess. At this rate, a third John Wick might trigger the apocalypse." Mike Rougeau of IGN gave the film an 8.5/10, stating that it "takes joy in expanding on the original’s lore", and praised the film as a vast improvement of its predecessor, in terms of action set pieces, fight choreography, cinematography, and writing. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "the real deal" and "pure cinema".

Writing for Time magazine in February Stephanie Zacharek stated: "The pleasures of John Wick: Chapter 2 may be even greater than those of its predecessor—itself a symphonic achievement in scrappy, balls-out, action filmmaking—because in this one, there’s no puppy murder to endure...it’s lovers of humankind who are put to the test. John Wick: Chapter 2 asks the classic pulp question—Are human beings worth saving?—and delivers, with the right proportions of joy and sorrow, the classic pulp answer: Sometimes, no."

Both Richard Brody writing for The New Yorker and Stephen Colbert writing for screenrant.com saw secret societies as a significant motif recurring in the film. In his article "The World of John Wick Explained", Colbert stated: "John Wick introduced audiences to a dark, polished, and sharply dressed, underground criminal society full of assassins who (mostly) abide by an unspoken code of conduct and two explicit rules. While the first movie told a more intimate story that only hinted at the larger world of this secret society, John Wick: Chapter Two takes the titular character through several of the corners of this complex underworld, revealing even more about the world of John Wick. While very few of these customs are explicitly explained, there are still enough hints about the inner functionings of the various entities presented, giving us enough puzzle pieces to put together a loose sketch of this mysterious world of assassins."

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club complained that it "lacks the first film’s domino-effect momentum", though overall he reacted positively. In part, he praised the action scenes as "entertainingly surreal".