a review of 疾速追杀2

11/28 -- John Wick: Chapter Two (now in theaters) I loved the original John Wick, and I've seen it at least four or five times at this point, which is unusual for me. Basically, when I'm hanging out with people, somebody will bring up the movie and somebody else will say "Oh, I haven't seen that, is it good?" whereupon we all drop whatever we're doing and immediately throw John Wick in the blu-ray player for a total impulse watch. The sequel is something of a different beast. Now that we've seen an effective demonstration of Wick's near-invincibility against the Russian mobsters in the first film, this one is all about raising the stakes by expanding the mythology of the highly-regimented, quasi-fantastic underworld in which he operates. Even as we get to luxuriate in the sleekly violent power fantasy of Wick and this world (favorite bit: Peter Serafinowicz as a firearms sommelier) we also see that it's all held together with the slimmest of threads. Here everything is basically pushed to the breaking point, and the consequences for the next film (which seems all but assured) should be great fun to unpack.