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It’s been about two years since I watched and reviewed the first “John Wick” (2014) film. I hadn’t realized it had been that long until I looked it up.

Yesterday, I was at the public library and saw Blu-rays for John Wick Chapter 2 and John Wick Chapter 3. Naturally, I checked them out and watched Chapter 2 last night.

I decided not to read my review of the first film, letting this one stand on its own. The action begins pretty much where the original left off.

Having secured another dog in the first movie, John (Keanu Reeves) is out to retrieve his beloved 1969 Ford Mustang. The dog and the car are special reminders of his deceased wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan). The Russian mobster Abram Tarasov (Peter Stormare) sits at his desk as he hears John invading his lair. His plan to pack up his operation and get away wasn’t in time.

John does manage to wreak havoc on Tarasov’s operation, but in the process, the Mustang is trashed, barely drivable. Managing to get back home, he retrieves his dog (which doesn’t have a name throughout the film) and the mechanic Aurelio (John Leguizamo) is doubtful of his ability to repair the severely damaged car any time soon.

Wick settles down to life with his dog, still mourning Helen. However he has a visitor.

Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) has come to claim his favor from John. When John wanted out of the business, he created a marker with D’Antonio in his blood. D’Antonio is calling it in. If John will do one job for him, the marker is clear and John is free. John refuses.

For someone as smart and experienced as Wick, it’s difficult to believe he wouldn’t understand there would be consequences to this. Having recently finished reading Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel The Godfather, I had a pretty good idea what was coming.

D’Antonio didn’t threaten John, didn’t become angry, didn’t fly into a rage. He just registered his disappointment and left. Except he didn’t really go. His parting remark was, “You have a nice house, John.”

John had just finished putting all of his weapons back in his basement crypt and cementing them in. He should have dug them back out. D’Antonio fires three incendiary explosives into the house, destroying it. John and his dog survive but everything else is in ashes.

John and dog walk all the way back into Manhattan and enter the Continental Hotel. He asks the concierge Charon (Lance Reddick) about the manager and is directed to the roof. Wick leaves his dog with Charon.

He meets with Winston Scott (Ian McShane) who reminds John of “the rules.” He cannot refuse the marker and is reminded of the Continental rules that no one does “business” on the grounds (a point that becomes important later). John sees he has no choice and locates D’Antonio at his high-end art museum. He is thoroughly searched by D’Antonio’s security enforcer Ares (Ruby Rose) who seems to enjoy the experience, including grabbing John’s ass.

Numerous sources say that Ares is mute which is why she uses American Sign Language to communicate. None of the sources say she’s deaf. Yet in interacting with her, John almost always signs back. It seems impractical for an assassin to be deaf since, as we see later when she is tracking John in a darkened catacomb, she would be unable to rely on sight and hearing.

John confronts D’Antonio while considering ways of killing him. D’Antonio’s father has recently passed away and he willed his seat on the High Table of the Council of Twelve (an international criminal organization) to his sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini). Santino wants his sister’s seat, and to get it, he tells John to kill her.

He considers it an impossible task but D’Antonio insists and tells him how to find her in Rome.

So John goes to Rome and after checking in at the local branch of the Continental, contacts a group of “experts” who outfit him with weapons and bulletproof clothing.

Another point. The material in the lining of John’s suits somehow stops bullets, but it has to be thin and flexible to be worn under his suit. The bullet may not be able to penetrate, but the velocity of the rounds would not be cancelled. It would still be transferred through the suit into John’s body. It would be like being punched with a fist traveling about 17,000 mph. It would still kill you, not just hurt.

John also receives detailed maps of where Gianna will be holding a very expensive and loud party that night, including modern blueprints and maps of the ancient catacombs. John enters with ease, but all the time, he is being watched by Ares.

I should note that everyone John encounters in “the business” recognizes him on sight. He’s practically a celebrity. This is not a good trait for an assassin if your job requires stealth and anonymity.

John manages to get inside without being detected. Gianna is accompanied by four bodyguards at all times, including Cassian (Common) who is especially dedicated to her. After a covert meeting with Mr. Akoni (Chukwudi Iwui) who Gianna has taken a debt from (and he’s very unhappy about it), she dismisses her guards to take a rather opulent bath.

John enters the room, but instead of killing her right away and leaving, they have a conversation with no point to it. John even lets her get close enough to touch him. She doesn’t use this to her advantage, but a professional like John should know better.

She undresses in front of him. She then slits the veins in both arms wrists to elbow and then enters the bath. Gianna explains that she wants to control her fate. Rather than let John kill her (which she sees as inevitable) she will commit suicide.

Gianna passes out but it’s unclear if she’s actually dead when John shoots her once in the head. Technically, he didn’t have to, but he wouldn’t have completed the contract if he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Now remember how John got in so easily, bypassing the crowd of partygoers without being seen?

For some bizarre reason, he leaves by going through the crowd letting everyone see him including Cassian. Of course, they know each other and Cassian realizes what’s happened. He calls for backup to get John while he goes to find Gianna dead.

There’s a running firefight through the catacombs where John has hidden various weapons. Then he finds that not only are Gianna’s people trying to kill him, but so is Ares and D’Antonio’s other assassins. Seems Santino realizes that once John is free from his blood oath, he’ll come for him next.

The fight ends up centering on John and Cassian and only stops when they both crash through the window at the Continental. The manager Julius (Franco Nero) reminds both of them that there is no business conducted on Continental grounds. He suggests they both have a drink in the bar to calm down.

During the drink, Cassian says that Gianna was close to him and that he will repay the debt. He pays for the round and leaves. Ares is sitting on a sofa and offers to buy him a drink. John refuses and she signs “See you around.” He responds “Not if I see you first.”

John makes arrangements with Julius to leave Rome unobserved and return to New York, which amazingly works. There would have been so many opportunities for John to be killed once he left the hotel for the airport.

Instead, he makes it to New York, but D’Antonio puts out a city-wide seven million dollar contract out on John.

The technology used at this “office” is truly ancient. Actually, this starts at the Continental in Rome when John uses a dial phone to call the front desk. They use those at this office as well as hold and line buttons, actual wired phone switchboards with switchboard operators, an old Commodore computer, and vacuum tube memo carriers that haven’t been seen since the 1940s or 50s.

Why? Yes, it’s cute and for me, nostalgic, but there’s no purpose for it. Especially the phone systems are unlikely to be able to interface with modern digital equipment, although I suppose you could build a closed internal system that used them. They’d be more expensive to install and maintain than modern communications devices. Oh, well. I have no idea how an ancient computer could send codes across the internet and/or cell system to cell phones.

As it turns out, every other person in New York City is an assassin. They call get calls on what amounts to flip cell phones (another anachronism since the action takes place in 2014) and everyone from street performers to garbage men try to kill John.

I should say that from the very beginning of the film, John has been accruing numerous injuries. Most people would have ended up in a hospital long before reaching even the middle of the movie.

Cassian is in New York. He must have taken a flight with or just after John. Cassian chases John through the subway system and they shoot at each other in a crowded station with no one noticing. That’s because the suppressors on their guns allow them to make no sound while firing.

This is a common mistake in most movies and TV shows. You’d think by now filmmakers would portray “silencers” in a more realistic light. Whatever.

John manages to stab Cassian in the heart saying that as long as he leaves the knife in, he won’t bleed out. Really, does a heart just go on beating normally with a big piece of metal stuck inside it?

Not everyone on the street is trying to kill John. There’s a (supposedly) homeless man named Earl (Tobias Segal) who hides John and kills two of his would be assassins (How do the people in one of the most crowded cities in the world miss all this and why does no one call the police?).

John wakes up being treated for his injuries and is escorted to the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne).

As another side note, this is the first time Reeves and Fishburne have worked together since the The Matrix franchise. It was a thrill to see them together again.

The Bowery King’s criminal operation is independent of D’Antonio but the Bowery King and his group are really tempted to cash in on the seven million. John convinces him that D’Antonio wants to take over the New York crime rings, including Bowery King’s, and he is their only hope of stopping them short of a full on gang war.

He is given a single semi-automatic handgun with only seven rounds. Dismayed, John accepts and is guided through underground passages to D’Antonio’s museum, where he is holding a party celebrating his ascension to the High Table.

Of course, John just walks in and all hell once again breaks loose. John kills a bunch of people, taking their guns and magazines along the way, and follows D’Antonio into an exhibit which is a maze of mirrors. I’ve read this is a homage both to the famous Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon (1973) and the James Bond movie The Man With The Golden Gun (1974).

John takes out all of D’Angelo’s men while D’Angelo escapes. Ares comes in with other men, who Wick also takes out. In a hand-to-hand knife fight (which was ridiculous since Ares had a gun), John kills Ares by stabbing her in the heart and then taking out the blade, letting her bleed to death (too bad, since Ruby Rose was great as Ares and I’d like to have seen more of her).

D’Angelo seeks refuge at the Continental which Winston reluctantly grants. I should say that previously, Winston settled the blood marker with D’Angelo and it’s “on the books” that John’s debt has been paid.

John finds Santino having dinner. D’Angelo says he could stay on the Continental grounds for a very long time, making it impossible for John to kill him. Despite multiple protests, John kills him anyway. Charon has been taking care of John’s dog all this while. John gets his dog back and returns in the rain to his burned out home.

Charon retrieves him and drives him to a park in New York to meet with Winston. The penalty for what John has done is death but out of friendship, Winston has suspended this for one hour. He proves this by literally commanding everyone in the park to stand still. Apparently they are all assassins. Really, no one else just happened to wander in?

The contract has doubled in price and has gone international. John and his dog are alone. Cell phones start ringing all around him stating that the contract starts in one hour. John and the dog begin to run.

End of movie.

Obviously, this will be continued and I’ll watch that Blu-ray tonight, reviewing it later.

In spite of the improbabilities, “John Wick: Chapter 2” is very enjoyable, highly violent, and totally action-packed. Reeves is a pleasure to watch and I’ll probably continue to view John Wick movies as long as they continue to be made (we’re up to number four).

It must have been a blast to make this film.