Alright, I’ve taken far too long to get this post out and for that I apologize, it’s been a hectic time and I now have a backlog. To the end of remediating that, I‘m doubling John Wick 2 and Arrival, with the focus on John Wick.
Arrival is a beautiful movie; excellently made, acted, and deserves every award it gets. It does have one flaw, which is all I’m going to talk about because it bugged me and I’ve put of this post too long. I’ve put my rant at the end of this piece. I think the movie is great, and you should watch it, and reading this will ruin the fuck out of it for you; because I’m a terrible person.
John Wick Chapter 2:
God, this is a glorious movie, I have nitpick-y stuff about the opening, but once the movie gets going, it is just magnificent. Now, this movie is exactly what you sign up for, and it’s very important to note that the title is “Chapter 2”, not just “2”. I’d recommend watching them back to back. Invite me when you do actually, I don’t think I’ll ever mind re-watching these movies.
Honestly John just views these situations as an opportunity to reload
Plot:
The first thing you need to know is that this movie takes place directly after events of the last movie. Formally, I think they said there was a 2 week gap, but for all we know it could be 2 days
I hesitate to even really call it a plot, not because it’s bad, but because the way the movie is structured it’s more about the world itself, and John’s place in it. The loose plot is that John owes a favour (in a more formal mystic society kind of way) that gets called in. This sends John to Rome for one last hit. He knows the target, it is one of the 12 seats of the High Table (basically the crime bosses of the world), and he knows it will make him an incredibly wanted man. He does that, and that happens, that’s really pretty much it. The big bad is the guy who calls in the favour (which is a minor spoiler but you will live).
Here we see the villain taking a moment to reflect
The World:
This is where the movie shines; the level of detail in this secret assassination oriented world is phenomenal. In Chapter 2 we begin to see what this world is actually based on, which is a collaboration between the 12 on the High Table, each the head of major crime organization. We learn more about territory struggles and the actual drug and smuggling portions of the secret world (how it is funded). The magic of John Wick was certainly the world, the continental, the scores of people simply saying “hello John” and John replying “Hello ____” it was a small touch but was immensely intriguing.
There is an entire, huge, secret society based around these organizations, all connected through the Continental hotels, which act as a sort of home base, and it is marvellous to learn more about this secret world.
Choreography:
The fighting style is what made John Wick 1 so incredible, no shaky cam, just pure brutal efficiency. The fight scenes are glorious of course; it’s what this movie does best. We see a lot of gorgeous combat through the movie, and its far more visceral that the previous movie, like way more gory, exploding brain matter and 2 guys at a bar with a pencil gory.
My one disappointment at the film is that he only killed 2 guys at a bar with a pencil, when it is clearly stated that his record is 3.
Pew-pew
What is remarkable is the consistency in the fighting style; John Wick doesn’t step up to more and more elaborate fight scenes and fancier moves, he just keeps his same consistent style. What you saw in the first movie: trip someone, shoot them in the head, shoot someone else, continues as his modus operandi for the entire second movie. John Wick isn’t a fancy man, he is an efficient man, a man of sheer will.
I need to re-watch this movie
But Here’s The Thing:
The Dog lives and that’s super important
Okay two disappointments, first being the lack of a pencil record, the second being the lack of matrix jokes. Lawrence Fishburne is in this movie, like as a fairly major role, and there is barely any nod to their previous franchise (other than a sort of savoir line at the beginning). Otherwise I have very little to complain about, I loved the use of the Continental as a sort of home base, the idea that everyone could be an assassin, the secret network of homeless assassins, all genius.
Hobo-King Morpheus’ blue pills are just roofies
Oh also the greatest thing: the world’s most passive aggressive gun fight. The two hitmen fighting through a New York Gallery, trying to be inconspicuous, firing silenced weapons at each other while trying to keep them hidden. It was a nice funny break in a very long fight scene, the whole world is just weirdly endearing.
Go watch this movie, just watch/rewatch the first one right before you do.
Arrival Rant (all spoilers):
Alright, so, where to begin, as I said Arrival was great, masterpiece, all that. I especially liked the fact that the opening line of the film was something like “I thought this was the beginning of your story, but I was wrong”, sneaky bastards.
To totally spoil the movie the whole thing is that the main character (Lois Lane, who is finally in a better movie) gains the ability to see the future, and thus can solve everything by seeing how it was already solved; but she doesn’t know she has this power until the end. It is really well done but here’s the thing:
It is the stupidest premise since Lucy.
This is the movie Lucy wanted to be, if you haven’t seen Lucy it is the film about how you can only use 10% of your brain, so using more makes you better = superpowers at distinct percentage increments. This movie is based on the idea that language fundamentally effects how we think, like how pictorial languages help people with math. Thus if you can read a language that is written from the back and the front in a circle, you can think in a circle, and thus perceive time as a circle. This then gives you the ability to see the future. That is exactly it, it is not more complicated than “if you think in a circle, you can see the future”, and holy shit that’s dumb.
Being able to see the future doesn’t mean you are smart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO1TScQwu6g
The aliens can see the future because they speak a language that’s a circle.
Lois Lane can solve problems by looking into a point in the future where her solution is explained to her by a third party.
Future Lois Lane is always somehow unaware that those crucial moments are important
Dumbass aliens could have foreseen the problems, and stopped the bomb thing.
Aliens apparently live 3000 years or more (assuming that the language only lets them see their own futures).
Hawkeye was completely useless through the whole teaching them the language portion.
The aliens didn’t make a single attempt to learn their language (despite presumably already knowing it, cause future sight thing).
Her future memories (?) somehow never changed, implying that time is a fixed construct; fate is now definitely a thing.
I thought this movie was a masterpiece, and hides its incredible base stupidity very, very well, but dear god is that dumb. Do people who write from right to left experience time like Merlin (backwards)? Benjamin Buttoning their way through life? If you wrote from bottom to top, would time just die?
Go watch it, and I hope I didn’t ruin it for you. It’s a wonderful film that just happens to be fun to rant about.
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