John Wick Review Part 1
The story of a man and his dog.
I have decided I want to be kinder in my thoughts towards Keanu Reeves. Sure it’s easy to jump on the “His current movies suck” bandwagon but I read in interview with him where he wished he got better roles and people liked working with him more and suddenly I was struck by the realization that he actually has provided me (and the movie world in general) with a ton of kind of awesome entertainment. Obviously the Matrix is a no brainer and in spite of the Wachowski siblings taking a left turn into the Dark Valley of Unplanned, Unnecessary, and Ungood Sequels he did an admirable job with the role he was given. For all everyone laughs at Point Break that was more about the live action stage play. Devil’s Advocate was great, as was Constantine and it’s easy to forget Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Speed set the barometer for dumb fun action adventure. I even liked Johnny Mnemonic once I got over how badly they translated the story and found a lot of things to like in 47 Ronin. I won’t go so far as to say I’m a fan but honestly I’m appreciative of the many hours of entertainment Keanu has given me.
So what about John Wick? Honestly shockingly good. Keanu managed to pull the cold heartless killer off well and the action made this movie kind of rock. This is a movie that plays out like a video game and that video game happens to be Max Payne. Lots of guns, lots of shooting, and the story of a grizzled burnt out killer of men trying to get revenge for…well more on that later. 
Most of the action scenes were so Max Payne-like that I kept expecting to see a Bullet Time meter in one corner of the screen (Bullet Bill image courtesy of the video game t shirt category). This is definitely one of those movies that when they come out with the special DvD release one of the special features will be a body counter that hits three digits.
However I am going to rail against the whole name a movie out of some jackass no one has ever heard of thing. This failed miserably in Jack Reacher. It failed again in Jack Ryan. Does Hollywood think 3rd times the charm? At least those two had some kind of literature tie in and popularity but I am no pop culture slouch and I couldn’t have told you who those two were to save my life. Making up someone entirely new and then expecting us to flock to the theaters becuase the name sounds vaguely like a sexual innuendo is asinine. Also why is it all these name as title movies have to have a one syllable name starting with a J? I don’t see Hollywood lining up to do an action movie called Barnabas Grossweiner.
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