John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

~NO SPOILERS~
This movie essentially starts right after the first one ends, right at the top-down view of New York City. Dark humor abounds,
bullets rip through head and bodies, and Wick is unstoppable.
This film should be held as the gold standard for action movies. There is very little camera shake during fights and Reeves clearly has spent a lot of time preparing for this role. You can see nearly every take-down, every gunshot, and Wick has to reload at inconvenient times in a realistic fashion which also adds to the hilarity of the following kills.
Overall the acting performances were solid. Reeves isn't known for having an extremely wide range, but his devotion to making this movie a kick-ass martial arts production is second to none. I felt the villain was a bit on the weak side though, but he did his role justice. Ian McShane's character remains the strongest especially combined with the last film.
The lighting is superb! There's a red-blue theme that is in nearly every nightclub and darkly lit areas and its absolutely lovely to look at. Overall cinematography is very good.
Definitely worth seeing!

Hmmm! I just don't get all the excitement around this franchise. This sequel sees the eponymous assassin (Keanu Reeves) trying to escape from just about every other killer on the planet after he manages to hack off "Santino D'Antonio" (Riccardo Scamarcio) and now has an eye-watering bounty on his head. He has to travel to Rome where he is soon subsumed in a web of secret societies all wanting him on a slab. Add to this perilous mix the truly wooden talents of Ian McShane ("Winston") and after countless extended, hugely artistic and choreographed fight scenes I was heading for the arms of Morpheus. It's just dull! Well produced, yes. Good looking - yes. Stylish - yes. Sadly, though - the repetitive nature of the action scenes and the wafer thin plot leaves no jeopardy whatsoever and it's so obvious that there are more of these to come that it doesn't matter how precarious his predicament, you just know he will survive - even if the beating he takes would kill a rhino! Lawrence Fishburne adds a little bit of panache as the "Bowery King" but otherwise, sorry - I'm clearly not the demographic!