Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

John Wick

(2014)

I wasted two hours of my time watching this, and I almost hate to waste any more writing about it. But I will.

We all know by now that there is some sort of checklist producers hand out to writers and directors of films like this. These are plot and action points that must be followed to the letter. Things like:

The good guy is tied to a chair while the Big Bad Guy gloats and tells him how painful his death is going to be. … and then he walks away and lets his henchmen handle that. CHECK.

The good guy manages to get loose and kill all the henchmen. CHECK.

Big Bad Guy tells his henchmen that this guy is unstoppable, can’t be killed, is a killing machine. … and then sends henchmen out in groups of twelve or more, to be wiped out to the last man. CHECK. He does this several times. CHECK.

Car chase. CHECK.

Automatic weapons fire where the bullets hit slightly behind the running good guy. CHECK.

Good guy is a deadly accurate shot with a handgun over long distances, except when he’s firing at the Big Bad Guy from four feet away. CHECK.

Body count. Must be very, very high. Two people at the IMDb went so far as to count the people John Wick killed here, but there were so many they came up with different numbers. Either 76 or 84. That was just the ones killed by Wick. CHECK.

The list goes on and on, and this movie manages to check every single one of them. Wick gets a few oowies along the way, but they don’t faze him much. Just sew the deep knife wound up yourself and continue on your robotic killing machine ways.

I actually had a little hope for this at the beginning. Wick’s girlfriend has died of some horrible disease and he is depressed. Then a box arrives, a posthumous gift from her. Inside is a puppy! A beagle. He quickly comes to love the pooch, and then the Big Bad Guy’s worthless son takes a fancy to Wick’s Shelby Mustang, and breaks into the house with some henchmen and beats the shit out of Wick … and kills the puppy! So that’s why he goes to war against the Russian Mob. Over a puppy! I thought that was cool. But it was soon forgotten as the bloodfest gathered steam.

What I wish they would do is issue a warning for movies like this. Something like …

THIS MOVIE MAY SEEM TO BE AN ACTION MOVIE STARRING A HUMAN BEING, BUT IT IS ACTUALLY A COMIC BOOK MOVIE STARRING A SUPERHERO WHO CANNOT BE HARMED IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY.

Then maybe they could punctuate the action scenes like they did the Batman TV show: ***POW!** KER-WHACK!!! **!!!SQUISH!!!**

And what really depresses me is that this utter brainless turd got good reviews. “Gets the adrenaline going!” was a typical comment. I got nothing against adrenaline, and I dig action movies, but I want just a bit of the real world to impinge on my action movies. You won’t find it here.