Movie Review: John Wick
How is Keanu Reeves 50? Damn it's not showing a bit. Anyway...
[TRIGGER WARNING FOR ANIMAL HARM! SERIOUS! DO NOT READ FURTHER IF THAT WILL RUIN YOUR DAY!]
It occurred to me as I was watching Keanu Reeves drop 12 bodies in under two minutes that something had either seriously gone awry in my brain or the film makers had done a number on me, because I found myself being really impressed by the showmanship of John Wick's killing technique and not so much distressed by the gruesomeness. And then I remembered the puppy and it was okay again. Because they fridged his puppy! OMG. Didn't they know that moviemaking rule #1 is don't hurt the dog??
OTOH, you will be grateful to me for spoiling that for you, because otherwise it's unbearable looking into that sweet puppy's face and knowing he'll be gone in 10 minutes, killed (out of frame) by ruffians. So be glad I warned you.
Also, it was something of a relief, I have to tell you, that for once it wasn't the girlfriend or the daughter or the son that got fridged. I don't have anything against adorable puppies, in fact I love them, and tiny kittens, too, but I also love people, and the feminist in me wonders why anybody has to be fridged in motivation for anything. However, in this case, it was less that the puppy's death was motivation for revenge (although it was) and more that this idiot kid, this thug, took *away* Wick's last hope and motivation to not be a contract killer. (He'd left the life five years earlier to marry his wife and live like a regular human. But his wife died of an illness and as a last act left him the puppy.)
Which brings us to another interesting point. During the rest of the film I found myself heavily rooting for this guy who is, in essence, a really bad guy, just because he'd been redeemed by love and a puppy.
I'm terribly shallow, I realize. But it's good film making. They did a good job of it, is all I'm saying.
I wish, of course, there had been more women in the film, as always. The movie broke a lot of the usual cliches, but one they did not is, even though there is a contract assassin after Wick who is a woman, she turns out to be the only one who "breaks the code" and does violence in the assassin's sanctuary and goes after him there. She pays for it, of course, but it bugs me that a woman is the treacherous one. Of course.
She fights very well against him, though. All the fight scenes are very realistic in that they are messy and look choreographed and no one looks like the clear winner until someone is, and it's not always Wick.
The other opportunity they had to break stereotype was with the old women wearing babushkas in the Russian church that was a front for the syndicate. One of them should totally have pulled an AK-47 on Wick when he went after the priest. Yet they did not. Disappointing and a missed opportunity.
The movie really kept me guessing between the incredible fast-paced action and the body-count (my God it was high) and the final scene with the kid just killed me. Here he's been in hiding for the entire film, countless people have died trying to protect him, he knows Wick has been hunting him like a dog for days and dropping bodies left and right to find him, and when Wick finally catches up with him, the kid's last words are...
Well, you'll have to watch the film. :D I highly recommend it to anyone who loves action films and doesn't mind high death counts. Keanu Reeves is awesome in it. It's just his kind of role: he doesn't say much, kicks all sorts of ass, and walks around stone-faced and bleeding a lot. :D
[ X-posted to Dreamwidth with