John Wick

John Wick is a kind of movie where you know what is coming, even if you haven't seen any of the trailers or haven't heard anything about the movie. Its a pretty straight forward movie and its pretty predictable. Does that make it a bad movie? No not really.

John Wick is the story of the title character (played by Keanu Reeves). Wick is a former hitman who is going through the tragedy of the death of his wife. He's no longer a hitman and he lives a pretty normal life.

He however is having a difficult time dealing with that loss. But as a parting gift, his wife left him probably the most adorable puppy you will ever see in a movie ever.

And immediately you know that puppy is going to die.

I don't know if that's a spoiler or what, but if you don't see the picture to the left and immediately know that that puppy is not going to make it through this movie, you've obviously never seen a movie with a dog in it.

Unfortunately, while Wick tries to maintain his normal life, he runs across Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen, yeah I know he has a real character name but its fun calling him Theon or Reek). Theon is the son of a Russian mobster, and has a horrible Russian accent to boot. Theon is envious of Wick's car and decides that he wants it.

Theon and his gang break into Wick's house, beat the crap out of him, steal his car, but more importantly, they kill his dog.

If you've read my blog before, I think you know what is next. Killing his dog sets him over the edge and sends Wick on a...

And that's pretty much the movie. Its pretty much a rampage movie of Keanu Reeves just shooting up a bunch of nameless Russian gangsters. And to be totally honest, its a perfect movie for Keanu. Mainly because John Wick doesn't say much in this film. There are a couple moments where he has to act and their not bad scenes, but Keanu has never been a Shakespearean trained actor and I think everybody knows that. He's better, and more entertaining when he's just kicking ass and he does a lot of that in this film.

Now this movie could have just been the Taken of Keanu's career where he just goes on a rampage and that's the entire movie. And to a certain extent, that really is the entire film.

But there is an element about John Wick that is actually really creative and kind of ups the ante.

John Wick is a former member of a sort of society of hitmen. He goes to a hotel exclusively for criminals and it really opens up this elaborate criminal underworld. There are rules, there are courtesies, and there are consequences for not following these rules. Now in a way, that doesn't sound totally original, but in the way that its executed, it is actually done really, really well.

All of that on top of the action and the performances from people like Theon, Willem Defoe, and Adrianne Palicki all make a really entertaining movie.

I mean don't kid yourself, strip away the trimmings and this movie is just Keanu Reeves in a rampage revenge flick. But the way that its done, the movie definitely knows what it is, and what it isn't.

To add onto all of this, the action is really good. Reeves isn't just shooting people, its almost like a dance the way he does it. Say what you will about the man's acting, the guy does know how to be in action films and really make me entertained the entire way.

Now something I will say about this movie is that while it has a lot of things going for it, I will not call this movie any one bit memorable. I understand that they're doing a John Wick 2 and I'm not totally sure why. I mean he gets another dog in the end (sorry for the spoilers?) but what are they going to do? Kill that dog and start it all over again?

Here's why I say its not that memorable. I saw this movie about two weeks ago. I have started this review over and over again just because there's not much to say about this movie. I can pull out the elaborate system of hitmen in this movie, I can touch on the action, but in the end, its blank face Keanu shooting a bunch of guys. If I want to see that, I don't need to watch a two hour long movie, I can go out and get one of the Matrix games and do that myself.

I'm not saying the movie is bad, it was actually really entertaining. But I'm not going to say its a great film or even a really good one. Its Keanu shooting a bunch of guys, what do you expect?

But those are my thoughts on John Wick. What did you think of the film? Comment below and let me know. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 and give me your thoughts there as well as requests for future reviews, I will give your requests priority. You can also follow me to get updates on my thoughts on future movie news and reviews!

I'll leave you with this. I might have put this up already on one of my past reviews but it just works too well for this one because Keanu Reeves is the king of the blank face. Enjoy!