Review: Daddy's Home 2

Daddy's Home 2 (2017) - Who gives a shit? An old Carl's Jr Bag filled with human excrement.

       Last week I saw the movie A Bad Moms Christmas, which was a sequel to the wholley forgettable Bad Moms from a years ago. Even though it had a cast that was game, it had a terrible script and was blandly unfunny. A real turd, basically. But Oh Lord Almighty how I look back fondly on that day. It seems like a far-off paradise to me now. If you had asked me last week if A Bad Moms Christmas was the worst holiday comedy sequel featuring one gender of parents while their OWN PARENTS also come to visit and cause a real mess of things, I would have definitely proclaimed, "Of course! How could two movies SO specific and terrible, both with one parent who is overbearing and overemotional and one who is a rock'n'roll absentee type, both so nauseatingly rote, so childishly and lazily created, happen TWICE IN THE SAME WEEK?"
       Well fuck you, Daddy's Home 2. You take the fucking cake, you movie-equivalent-of-being-forced-to-watch-your-parents-have-sex. You are the worst thing a person could possibly see in a movie theatre right now.
       Daddy's Home 2 continue the story of Mark Wahlberg's Dusty and Will Ferrell's Brad, two co-dads who don't always see eye to eye on how to raise--aww, Jesus Christ, I can't even do it. I can't even be bothered. Want a synopsis (you don't)? Go to IMDB (don't do it). I feel ill. Mel Gibson and John Lithgow play the respective grandpas. Linda Cardinelli is there, sort of, in the thankless mother role. Okay, looks, I saw the trailers. I wasn't expecting to really 'like' this particular film, but setting a low bar for a movie just because it's a comedy sequel isn't fair. The filmmakers involved in this movie, and if you really think about it, A LOT of people who were involved to make this movie a reality, didn't have to make a shitty version of whatever this movie is. They could have, ya know, tried. The first one had at least a few moments based in character motivation that resembled a comedy.
       At least Bad Moms Christmas is rated R. Ferrell and Wahlberg know how to swear funny, that certainly could have helped. And while Bad Moms seemed to think saying "What the fuck" every couple minutes warranted as a joke, you still got some great Kathryn Hahn sass mouth (I do love her) going around to garner some laughs. But DH2 is stripped of absolutely anything interesting or provocative, so blandly fucking neutered. I'm not saying a movie needs swearing to be funny, but if youre not going to go with that approach, then you can't instead just have lazy, screechy physical comedy we've all seen a thousand times before. People get hit with snowballs no fewer than six times (is getting hit with a snowball funny? Has it ever been?) I lost count after 11 how many times Ferrell get hit by something. A great deal of the slapstick defies laws of physics and basic understanding of how human bodies and every-day objects work. Which, hey, wanna go bizarre and absurd? Why not? Just make something funny.

       Everything about the stunt casting (and it is stunt casting. He doesn't even act. He just chuckles with his gross crinkled paper laugh and slaps people with the back of his hand for emphasis. The whole. Fucking. Movie) to play Wahlberg's father made me feel dirty. It uncomfortably plays to all the worst things about Gibson's real-life persona. He's a macho man's man who tells his grandson to abruptly kiss a girl on the lips and then slap her on the ass after. Christ, he probably didn't even know he was on a movie set. And John Lithgow...is there. Look, I love Lithgow, and I hope he made a decent paycheck, but he adds literally nothing to this movie.
       I haven't even gotten to the worst part. I HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN TO THE WORST FUCKING PART, YOU GUYS. It's one thing to make a comedy that isn't funny, I mean, I'm not happy about it, but sure, waste our time. But the movie offends greater than just not being funny, it's so utterly tone-deaf to the way human beings interact and think and behave that as a result it's squirmingly unbearable to watch. There are four, let me repeat, FOUR different scenes where huge crowds of people gather around to watch this family argue or go bowling or...shudders...do improv. They are supposed to be emotional, or heartwarming, or...something, but instead they made me hoping for an aneurysm just so I could stop feeling so embarrassed.
        John Lithgow's shocking discovery (fart noise) that he and Will Ferrell's mom split up is actually revealed while Lithgow is called up to be part of an improv scene. I wish to god that sentence wasn't true. And the worst part is the audience is laughing the whole time. It was brutal. The end of the movie (which is seriously a twenty minute scene, all played out in front of a huge group of strangers at a movie theatre), involves a group song and three different people making proclamations of love while the crowd of whoeverthefucks cheer them on. I promise it's even worse than how I just described it. It is truly awful, some real non-human shit. In the last ten minutes the movie became about the meaning of Christmas and family when the 80 minutes that preceded it were solely about Will Ferrell's nuts getting hit.
       I could go on. I could spew more angry, hateful garbage about how creepy and weird this movie is (the young boy at one point kisses his step-sister and slaps her on the tush, and after another moment it is never mentioned again), but there's no point. It is offensively cruel and rude filmmaking to pander so low to the abilities of human people to understand human things. Do yourself a favor and see A Bad Moms Christmas.

Wow. This has been a real rollercoaster of a week, movie-wise, huh?

Grade: One million dead Christmas Wishes.

Also: Both movies end with the grandparents flying to Las Vegas to get wild and crazy. If either of these come to fruition as sequels I swear to god I'll have a breakdown, shave my head, and eat all my hair.

Review: The Florida Project

The Florida Project (2017) - Sean Baker

       The Florida Project is a very quietly ambitious movie. It's dramatic but funny. Very little happens in way of plot, but it manages to represent several very different characters in a way that's honest and captivating. It's mostly about children and childhood, but it doesn't treat its audience like a kid. It's a smart and well-acted movie that is so simple in premise and so delicately well-done that it almost seems ridiculous it hadn't been made already. I mean, yeah, similar films have probably been made, but not as good as this. It was moving and not and tragic but not overwrought and it made me feel emotions in my chest-brain area.

       There are a lot of characters floating around The Magic Kingdom, the low-rate, nearby Disney World-but-certainly-not-in-any-way-affiliated-with-Disney-World hotel that functions as close to a permanent residence as the law allows for many of its tenants, but the story truly belongs to Moonee (Brooklynn Prince). She's a mischievous but sweet six-year-old girl on summer break, precocious but not in a twee, Wes-Anderson-dancing-on-the-beach-to-French-vinyl-precocious. She's actually believable. She's still a child who says silly things, plays with her friends, and lies when she's afraid of getting in trouble. She just happens to be more perceptive than most her age, and a lot of that is because of her tattooed, blunt-smoking and hustling mother, Hallee (Bria Vinaite), who takes her daughter along with her as she hocks cheap perfume outside fancier hotels than the one she lives in and teaches her daughter how to twerk.
       Most of the movie focuses around Moonee and her two best friends, Scooty and Jancey (do kids in Florida really have names like this? I genuinely can't tell if I hope so or not) while they do the things kids do: they play. They run around. They spit on people's cars (again, I mention: Florida). They go swimming. Long stretches involve these three just being kids. Luckily for us, it's very charming and never veers off into too precious or aimless. I truly can't tell how much of the scenes with the children had actual scripts, and how much of it they were able to just get these pretty great children actors to riff while spending time with each other. It's a testament to the direction and script by Sean Barker (co-written by Chris Bergoch) that I can't quite tell. Either way, the children are all appropriately adorable and their scenes together range form sweet to downright funny.
       But the film's subtext is always there. These people in the hotel, former teenage mothers and grandma's forced to care for their grandkids, are clearly not in ideal predicaments. What the movie does so smartly, however, is keeps all these more dramatic elements at bay, squarely seen from Moonee's perspective. The narrative threads and adult problems are still presented to the audience, but only incrementally, bit by bit, almost like we were children who don't quite yet understand the world we've been thrust into.
      The hotel where they live, just outside Disney World, is also such an integral part of the story. Moonee and her mom live close enough to see affluent families in richer hotels take private helicopter rides to and from the park (and gleefully flip them off in the process). Moonee is able to panhandle for ice cream bucks from tourists with kids of their own. The looming shadow of Disney World is a constant reminder of their every day difficulties. They're so close to the Happiest Place on Earth (my idea of happiness is very different than that of the Disney Marketing team, but whatever), and yet they're stuck just on the outside. Moonee is just too unequipped to fully understand it. She only sees some free ice cream. To really drive the point home, The Florida Project was the original name used to describe Disney World when they were first conceiving it (get it? Get iiiiit?)
       Willem Dafoe takes a break form being the scariest actor in the entire universe to play Bobby, the hotel manager who (shockingly, I know) is gruff but has a heart of gold. Even this role, as silly as it sounded as I typed it, is done with craft and a lot of care. He's an actual person and in just a few scenes they really us a pretty clear picture of who he is. Most films/actors require much more effort and time than that, but The Florida Project makes it look easy.
       For a movie that deals with so many depressing and heartbreaking themes, it's fairly incredible how enjoyable and realistic it feels while it's playing, With its lack of narrative momentum and almost two hour run-time, I never once felt my attention waver. And I think that's because the movie feels just real enough, and most importantly, Sean Barker and the filmmakers refuse to judge anybody. Not the people who've isolated themselves or made bad decisions, not the people who've had to steal to pay the bills, and not even the more affluent people who can actually afford to go to Disney World and not just watch the fireworks from the field behind the parking lot. The Florida Project simply lets them exist in a particularly well-made world. Even if elements are unfamiliar, Moonee's story of childhood is just as relatable and honest as she is.

Grade: 17 Strawberries and Raspberries Eaten Together

Review: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) - Yorgos Lanthimos      

       Imagine, if you will, let's say...a pizza maker who only eats leather shoes. Or, or, or a man murders a thousand people with an antique ship in a bottle and is rewarded with cacti. Or a die-hard Rick and Morty fan who has healthy human relationships. If these things sound absurd and utterly ridiculous to you, then you are only about halfway on the way to grasping Yorgos Lanthimos' newest movie, a mystery/thriller told by way of an absurdist Mony Python comedy, the succinctly named "The Killing of a Sacred Deer." Yes. That is really the title. The movie is tense and at times frightening, and at other times the goofiest thing I've seen in a while. It's like Park Chan-wook and Luis Buenel did messy hand stuff under the table at a dinner party and cleaned it up with a napkin and then that napkin got pregnant and had a baby that grew up to be the screenplay for this movie. Which, clearly means I liked it.

       None of this should come as surprising to those familiar with Lanthimos' previous work, including his first English speaking film, "The Lobster." That film was about a calmly dystopian future where single people were hunted down and turned into house pets. In his new film (once again starring Colin Farrell, who plays a Cincinnati, I think, surgeon who still has Farrell's own Irish accent. God, I love it when he does his real accent), Lanthimos and screenwriter Efthymis Filippou don't so much make a whole new world in this film, instead opting to show us our own, more relatable world in a sterilizingly unrelatable way. Everyone speaks in a forthright deadpan, an almost robotic-like Tommy Wisseau understanding of how humans speak. It's ridiculous and blunt and awkward and at times very funny. Colin Farrell is weirdly obsessed with metal wristwatch bands versus leather. "You have some hair under your arms. But not as much as my dad. He has three times as much hair at least. And on his back," two children comparing levels of puberty discuss.

       So, right, the plot, which, let me stress, is not very important, centers around Colin Farrell's surgeon and his strange, mysterious relationship with 16-year-old Martin. Their relationship is central to the main struggle of the plot, but suffice it to say, Martin's inclusion into Farrell and his family's life does not mean good news for any of the people involved (his wife, Nicole Kidman plays his wife with strange, coma-pretending-sex-having-zeal, or his kids, a choir-singing teen girl and a 12-year-old boy with hair too long). 

      From there the movie morphs into a strange morality tale where no one in the movie is particularly interested in being moral. It sure is fun and weird and odd, but it also makes the characters completely unsympathetic. It's an interesting dichotomy. The stranger they get the more awful they become, which makes it funnier, somehow making me feel more and less invested in the story at the same time. If this is a movie about parenthood, you definitely would not put it in the "How-To" section for any new parents. 

      The performances range from bizarre to great, but it's hard to gauge how well anyone is really acting with the strange, stilted dialogue. Kidman can go from benevolently wooden to cruel and snide to downright dead-eyed and creepy between scenes. Barry Keoghan plays the afflicted teenager, Martin, with a creeping disturb that teeters from invoking sympathy to full-blown fright. And for as strange as the whole movie plays, the third act of the film does a decent job of delivering on the movie's wacky fucking narrative. 

       This movie is strange and not completely together. The humor sometimes detracts from the tension, and vice versa. It doesn't quite tell a story about people I want to know or experience, but that is clearly part of its charm. I've never enjoyed seeing a full-grown man spinning in circles for so long. 

Grade: 4 Bleeding Eyeballs out of 7 metal watch bands.

Oh I forgot, but Alicia Silverstone is in this movie! Alicia Silverstone, you guys!!!

Review: Suburbicon

Suburbicon (2017) – George Clooney

       Suburibicon is a strange, little movie. It's a black comedy that isn't all that funny. It's a comment on racism that doesn't actually say anything about racism (other than it's bad, which like, I mean, yes, George, I agree, but...duh?). It's quirky characters but we don't actually get to know any of them (this is even more problematic when you realize there are only about 8 speaking roles in the whole movie). It's...all just slightly off. I didn't hate it. I just wish they the creative team behind this movie, which includes George Clooney, who can certainly direct (Confessions of Dangerous Mind) and a screenplay that was co-written by Clooney and the fucking COEN BROTHERS (goddamn, Coen brothers, I love you. I seriously value them more than most of my actual human friendships, because Fargo) had taken the ideas and characters of Suburbicon and reorganized them in a way that just made more sense.

       Without getting too spoilery, this is definitely a movie and a universe the Coens helped create. It's basically Fargo in suburban 1950s as opposed to the frozen snowscape of Minnesota and North Dakota. There's a bumbling husband, a failing marriage, money problems, two funny-yet-menacing criminals, a lot of slow action building sharply bookended by horrific, yet still sort of silly, violence and bloodshed. "Holy shit," he realized while typing this sentence, these movies are EXACTLY the fucking same. So why is Fargo one of the greatest movies ever made while Suburbicon is only barely not the worst movie Clooney has ever directed (cough cough LEATHERHEADS cough cough)? Well I'll tell you in three words consisting of a proper noun and a curse word for emphasis: Marge. Fucking. Gunderson.

      Fargo's m ain character, earnest and awesome and pregnant Frances McDormand's cop investigating the crimes is our window into the grimy world the movie creates. She is smart and relatable on so many levels, that when all these absurd things start happening and people get murdered left and right, she is there to help tether us to the ground, to make the monstrosities more palatable, and, when experienced from her eyes, even darkly funny. Suburbicon does NOT have a Marge Gunderson. And that's not Matt Damon or Julianne Moore's fault. Their characters are very much kept at a distance from the audience. Unfortunately its in service of a “twist” that isn't really a twist and isn't really surprising, so we aren't rewarded plot wise, and all we get in exchange is barely knowing anything about our two “leads.” By the end I didn't know Matt Damon's character (however, his name, Gardener Lodge, is pretty solidly dumb and funny) any better, and I sure as shit didn't care about him any more. He was kind of just a prick, which made him much less funny, which was a big problem.

       Instead we get the movie told through the eyes of his mostly mute son, Nicky. This robs the movie of a lot of its agency, as this child character just doesn't have the necessary tools to carry the emotional weight of the story. And against this entire family crime drama, there's another subplot about the new black neighbors who are facing violence and discrimination for moving to their perfect, white suburban paradise. It's a noble idea, sure, one that tries to leave the movie with a hopeful image of coexistence between races based in innocence and friendship, but it just doesn't land the way Clooney and team wanted.

       This movie isn't terrible. There's a few good performances (mostly I mean Oscar Isaac, who should have been the main character, probably, but instead was shoved to the side for two measly scenes) and a few laughs, but everything about Suburbicon left me almost as cold as Matt Damon's line readings (Ooooooo CHARACTER DEPTH BURN, MOTHERFUCKER).  

GRADE: 2.5 out of 5 Punched Matt Damon Faces

Review: Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) – Taiki Waititi

     The newest Thor movie, the third of its trilogy in the third phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, coming after what seems like no less than three hundred and eleven previous Marvel installments, is probably as good as we can hope to get at this point, and that is really not a terrible thing. It didn't reinvent the wheel. It didn't really try to do anything that Marvel hadn't done before. It still had dumb plot maguffins, shoed-in cameos to make us say OH HAI DR. STRANGE, I MEMBER YOU, and a pretty lame bad guy, but goddamn if it wasn't a pretty fun time with plenty of 80's style and charm to boot.

     The fact that the entire movie and its big jokes were intimately detailed in every trailer and still wasn't ruined while viewing is a testament to loose, improvisational style that director Taiki Waititi and the movie takes. It's probably the funniest Marvel movie, possibly only being outdone by the first Guardians (which owed a lot to the same looser, comedic tone that James Gunn very intelligently used). In fact, Thor: Ragnorak takes a lot of cues from its inter-dimensional space brother, and not just in humor. The junker, thunder-dome planet of Sicara, where all the best parts of the movie take place, has a bright, grimy, retro 1960s as future feel to it that goes side by side with Starlord listening to a mix tape on a Walkman while discovering extraterrestrial power sources.

     Jeff Goldblum at some of his Goldblumiest, the bright splashes of yellows, greens, and neon, and most importantly, the dystopian, 80s synth soundtrack (Turbo Boy with a 100 million dollar soundtrack, anyone?) definitely set this movie apart from Thor's previous installments (which, while basically everyone's least favorite, I kind of enjoy. The Dark World was just so stupid that I thought it worked). And almost the whole cast is fucking charming. Chris Hemsworth uses his veiny, biceppy, innate dumb-goodness for maximum likability, making the character welcomingly relatable for basically the first time. His scenes with Hulk (even though I swear to god we saw most of them in the trailers) are exactly what he needed to show some humorous range.

     But the MVP award goes to Tessa Thompson. She's a hard-drinking, tough-as-shit, former warrior princess who turned her back on her people (after I'm pretty sure her fellow female warrior/lover was killed, but phew, thank god they didn't say it for sure cuz IT'S ADAM AND EVE NOT THOR AND STEVE. Steve like...Steve Rogers...Get it? That's Captain America's name? Aaaah you get it!) and doesn't give a shit about nobody, until of course she changes her mind and decides to give a shit. But the script (or lackthereof) and Thompson's unbelievably charming performance make all these things about her character not suck at all. She actually appears to have strength and autonomy and she's a breath of fresh air. She reminded me of Osha from Game of Thrones if only she was an immortal badass warrior and wasn't lost for four seasons only to be immediately stabbed in the neck by Ramsay upon returning (SORRY SPOILERS).

     Cate Blanchett is there to chew up some scenery. It's...fine. There's a long punchy-fighty third act that doesn't quite nail it (Marvel movie Third acts...more like TURD ACTS, AMIRITE?!) There's a few “emotional” scenes with Anthony Hopkins as Odin that also kinda fart along, but thankfully those don't take up too much time. The things wrong with Thor are the same things that plague every halfway decent superhero movie. At this point there's no way to escape the cross promotion and vertical integration synergy jargon machine that is the MCU, but most of those evils are kept quirkily at bay by first time big-budget director Taiki Waititi, whose complete lack of experience in this type of blockbuster making was probably the movie's greatest asset.

     I'm pretty sure that, creatively at least, the MCU is teetering on its last legs, and even though I still see every one of these things in theatres, even I can't be sure how much longer this shit is going to be entertaining. But Thor: Ragnarok is plenty fucking entertaining. So whatever. Let's all pick up some snakes because we all know how much Thor loves snakes.

GRADE: 7 of 10 Smashed Magical Hammers

17 Dollars? More like FREE BECAUSE MOVIEPASS IS THE DUMBEST/BEST THING EVER. There's no way this is going to last long.

This is truly neither here nor there, but before I saw the movie I went to the taco truck across the street (Danny's, I think?) and ordered a Cubano torta. It had a hot dog on it. It had ham and some roast pork too, but it also. Had. A fucking. Hot. Dog. On it. It didn't even taste horrible, it was just an abomination against God. That's all. Just had to get that off my chest. 

Review: Get Out

Get Out (2017) – Jordan Peele

        When word first hit that Jordan Peele, the funny big-eared half of Key and Peele, was writing and directing a horror film I was obviously intrigued. When I found out it was somewhat a comedy I thought, well sure, yeah. When I heard it was being produced by Blumhuse I went, “Hmmmm,” pleasingly as I tapped the pads of my fingers together in a thoughtful way. When I saw the trailer, learned it was about a suburban nightmare land where seemingly affable white families terrorize black males, it all basically clicked. Oh and then when I found out Bradley Whitford plays the aforementioned patriarch I basically stood up in my chair and screamed “TAKE MY MONEY.”

I am an apologetic lover of horror-comedies. The two genres, when done well, can become a sum that's so much greater than its parts. But it has to be done just right, and I find it's usually best when the movies are treated as horror films that happen to also have comedic moments, rather the other way around. I'll admit the bar was set so high for my expectations of this movie it seemed almost impossible to deliver. I thought perhaps Peele's (hilarious) sensibilities would bleed into the rest of the horror parts too much, and feel uneven.

        Well I am stupid. Because apparently Jordan Peele is REALLY good at making horror films.

The film's hero is Chris, a likable, if not fully developed (not that it detracts from the movie), likable, 26-year-old black man going with his white girlfriend to meet her parents for the first time. “Did you tell them I was black?” He asks in the first scene, immediately setting up the movie's tones of racial awareness. But even when she assures him her parents aren't racist (“My dad would have voted for Obama a third time if he could”), once they're on the trip everything feels off. They hit a deer on the drive up, which Chris watches die, before he is hassled by a white police officer (seemingly just for being black). The scene is simple and fast but steeped in dread (Peele has a good eye for staging a shot in a slightly askew way to make them seem just barely strange).

        One of Get Out's greatest strengths is its commentary on race relations: suburban affluent white people's trying to be “cool” with black people, discomfort outside one's own race, having black help, stereotypes about race and horror movies, they all do a great job to make this movie a sharp, relevant satire while not trying so goddamn hard to spell the message. Many times the race differences are down played for laughs (Bradley Whitford, who plays the dad, and thank GOD because he's amazing, keeps calling Chris things like “man” and “bro”). Rose's mother, Catherine Keener, seems off. Kind, but way too into hypnosis, and her brother Jeremy is downright aggressive, trying to wrestle with Chris because of his “fantastic genetics.” It flips the horror movie trope (of a nice-seeming family who are actually killers) just enough by adding the racial element that it feels fresh, but still familiar enough that the “message” of the film never feels exhausting.

        As the weekend progresses and things get weirder, we see Chris (Daniel Kayuula) do his best to stay civil in the face of all these awkward moments, continually telling Rose (Allison Williams) that everything is fine. Like so many movies, it's the main characters own admittance into these situations that becomes his undoing. It just so happens this time it's because of a determination to not assume other people's racism, even when it literally hypnotizes you.

        Which brings to my favorite thing about this type of horror movie: Without giving too much away, there is very little to no supernatural elements in the film. Sure, things go absolutely batshit crazy, and some people are definitely gonna get stabbed (possibly with a deer's head, a recurring image that actually does a nice job of establishing Chris' character), but it all feels creepily possible. There's no gross-outs or cheap jump scares. Instead the movie has a building level of suspense, everything getting stranger and stranger, until it finally snaps and the true horrors are revealed. It's really fucking well done.

        The movie definitely has some comedic beats in it (mostly delivered by LilRel Howery, Chris' proud TSA agent friend), but Peele saves most of them for the second half of the film when things get equally bonkers for our hero. It feels ever-so-slightly uneven, and not because the jokes aren't funny or Howery doesn't sell them perfectly (he does), I guess I just with it was spread out a little more evenly throughout the whole movie. There is also one particular ending fight/death scene that is so badly edited I have to think everyone on set had the flu that day. But these are very small complaints in an otherwise inventively smart, fun, and most of all, creepyscary horror movie that I fucking loved. Jordan Peele has got my vote for all the movies in the future.

Grade: A-

Random Observations:

• Between this and Cabin in the Woods, can Bradley Whitford star in every self-aware horror comedy movie for the rest of time? PLEASE THANKS.
• Lakeith Stanfield from Atlanta shows up! Hey Darius! I wish you had shot a poster of a dog in this as well.
• Daniel Kaluuya (from Black Mirror) is great, and does some super solid straight-faced crying. It was intense. And Allison Williams' (Girls) can go from “sweet everygirl” to dead-eyed SCARY quickly.
• I saw this movie in a VERY crowded showing in Downtown LA. It was one of the loudest, rowdiest, and most fun movie-going experiences I ever had.
• I could not stop thinking about this the whole time. I truly hope this is how Jordan Peele makes movies:

Review: John Wick Chapter 2

John Wick Chapter (2017) - Chad Stahelski

          What made 2014 John Wick so great wasn't just it's solid directing and well-executed action/stunt work (thought it helped), and it wasn't just our steely hero, Keanu Reeves, being as Keanu-y as possible (thought it helped), and it wasn't even the fact that the movie is a puppy revenge flick (okay that part SERIOUSLY helped). What made John Wick so surprisingly refreshing was how confident it was in all its cinematic sensibilities. It commits to every narrative choice, regardless of how silly it seems, which in turn makes it so much fun to watch. If the movie believes John Wick is as good at killing dozens of faceless henchman then goddamnit, so do I! It's this kind of commitment to prolonged ridiculousness that gets me so off when I watch action movies. And boy does John Wick Chapter 2 double down on the craziness while embracing it so earnestly.

           If John Wick was already a confident film, then John Wick Chapter 2 is the Matthew McConaughey from Dazes and Confused of movies when it comes to but sure of yourself. From the first scene (containing of the smoothest looking and excellent car chase sequences I've ever seen) it takes everything you love about the first movie and adds more flare, mixes it up just enough to make it not just a retread, but still give you all those delicious familiar notes. A huge body count? You betcha. Is there revenge? Hoo boy! Is there a dog? YES, AND IT'S ADORABLE THERE JUST WASN'T ENOUGH OF HIM.

           Starting off not long after the first movie, John Wick is once again dragged back into the murky and compelling (and apparently all-encompassing) international assassin syndicate known through the Continental hotel. The specifics of why he gets back aren't important (blood oaths, markers, more blood oaths), but what is important is the over-the-top and fantastical world building that the movie does this time around. Not just its international locale (how do you one-up the club scene from the first move? Have another club scene, but this time in Italy so the club can be even fucking weirder! Because Italy!), but we delve deeper into the world that Keanu keeps leaving and coming back to and leaving and coming back to. It gives the movie an interesting depth and sprawling nature the first one couldn't possibly have considered. It's a bigger sandbox with more toys but it never loses sight of what's important: namely Keanu flipping countless dudes over and shooting them in the head.

           There's a great fight scene between John Wick and Common's Cassian that culminates with the two of them crashing through the glass of the Italian Continental building, a safe-haven and murder free zone for all contract killers who arrive there. And in there we see the brilliance of the movie, one that can go from two characters trying their best to stab each other (for dessert) one second and forced to drink bourbon and gin with each other the next is funny, a little silly, and all great.

           The movie goes on maybe a hair too long, but with the amount of fun it keeps adding with each new set piece, it keeps it from ever slogging down too much. Towards the end there is an assassin montage scene(s) that is so ostentatiously insane and hilarious that I almost wish it was even longer. The larger scope of the movie, the revealing more of this worldwide killers club plays well into the ending, which while it doesn't offer much in the way closure (not that we need much), it's clearly there to set up even more of John Wick's future puppy-laden adventures.

           And fantastic I say, fantastic! With an entry like this, I could watch these movies happen every year or two until I die. Or until Keanu Reeves does. But have you seen pictures of that dude? He doesn't age. These movies could go on forever. 

Grade: A-

Random Thoughts

• I want to see an entire movie about the rockabilly tattooed women running the international assassin hot line.
• Between the scenes with the tailors, the gun-sommelier, and the guy who must've made maps for Indiana Jones, this movie had more of a Bond feel. But then John Wick stabbed a guy in the dick and it all sorta evened out.
• I could have used more dog. But I can honestly say that about any movie ever.