THE COMMERCIAL FILM OF THE WEEK
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO (2017) by Chad Stahelski
“And all this for a f *** dog?”
There was a time, for some happily overcome, in which proliferated the action movies. It was the 80s, the decade of the establishment in the West of the conservative policies that gave rise to a new rise of the cinema of evasion. Happy times for the Van Damme, Stallone, Seagal or Norris, the new heroes of the fight against the red hell (the Iron Curtain still existed) and, in general, against everything that supposed a threat against the “status quo”. What all these films had in common was a uneven plot, a minimum plot that served as a background for the physical exhibitions of its protagonists, who surely wouldn’t know to make a division with decimals but yes to handle all kinds of weapons as if it were the simplest thing in the world. And above of all a body count from which the account was lost after the second dozen.
When a couple of years ago “John Wick” was released (Chad Stahelski, 2014), the references to this type of cinema were already old and somewhat dated, but nevertheless still has a small gap in the space of our hearts reserved for guilty pleasures. That story of the former hired assassin (Keanu Reeves), who returns from retirement because some small-time gangsters have stolen his car and killed his dog, had the charm of that well-known action-film flavor of the past, including some details of a more “cult” thriller as could be the “The Red Circle” (1970) by Jean-Pierre Melville.
Against all odds, the film it worked very well, and this encouraged Chad Stahelski (who had been stuntman of Reeves in the trilogy “Matrix”) to launch itself to record the sequel. And what we find in “John Wick: Chapter two” is an improved, augmented, and steroid-fueled version of the first part, which starts right at the time it ended but surpasses its predecessor in intensity and charisma. The second part of “John Wick” is an almost abstract film, which has eliminated any reference to the “real” world (it would seem that our world is made up exclusively of murderers, with its own codes and rules) to offer a show of pure violence. The application of digital effects to the scenes of shots is conceived to make drool to the fans of the cinema of action of the new generation, those that are unable to maintain the attention in the screen if there are dialogs of half a minute. So it’s no accident that the aesthetic of “John Wick” is so similar to a video game (references to “Payday”, in which Wick is a playable character are there), because in these times you can not to avoid the union between the two industries. Thus, “John Wick” represents the dream of all gamer, in which the character dominates all the ways to do damage and has perfected the shot in the head like one of the fine arts. On the way we have left a hyperbolic film, deliciously incredible but that nevertheless leaves us wanting a third part. Because “John Wick” is pure cinema of postmodernity. Pure 21st century.
Traducido por: Eduardo Llorente.
Our rating: (4/5)
