So I didn’t love the first John Wick as much as most people. I thought it was a perfectly competent movie that was essentially a vehicle for meaningless, slick, stylish FPS speedrun-style violence. My take on the second chapter is basically the same, because it’s essentially doing the same thing.

The setting is absolutely nonsensical, positing this elaborate underworld full of superhuman ultra-skilled assassins who have an entire secret society full of honor codes and blood-compact deals and high-end merchants and whatever else. It is completely absurd to the point where I can’t help but think that they should have just made them all vampires, because that’s really what the movie is trying to evoke, some kind of Great House power struggles among vampire clans.

The violence is equally nonsensical. I say “FPS speedrun” and yeah, it’s chock full of fast-spinning and headshots. Which is fine, it’s all well-staged and visually interesting, but it’s not more than fine. (And yes, I’m well aware that this is a minority opinion, and that people who like action movies more than I do really like the action here.) More annoying is that Wick’s marksman skills vary depending on plot needs. Up against a group of mooks, he can headshot them all as soon as they enter his line of sight; up against a fellow master assassin, he’ll miss like ten shots in a row. (Defense is similarly inconsistent: Wick takes a whole boatload of direct, sometimes point-blank, gunshots to his torso, which he’s able to survive because he’s wearing magical body armor in his suit. But why aren’t all the other assassins, then?)

The plot is barely more coherent, all about betrayal and the arbitrary honor codes of this underworld society, paired with a whole bunch of morose “I want to get out of this ultra-violent world” whining in between bouts of killing dozens of people. But the most absurdly ridiculous part of the plot is when one character puts out a $7 million hit on John Wick. This is meant to seem like a big deal and a lot of money, but basically everyone in this world who’s not a mook is shown to have wealth ranging from tens of millions to at least billions. In that context, putting out a $7 million hit feels like Dr. Evil saying one million dollars.

Anyway, all of that is why I can’t agree with the takes that ascribe greatness to the movie. It’s too much shallow, incoherent silliness. But on the plus side, it is stylish as hell. Every character and every location is just dripping style, and the cinematography leans into that, too, with absolutely gorgeous shots. With its many scenes set in shadows and dark places, this is definitely a movie that benefits from being watched on UHD-BD — it’s filmed with a 3K digital camera, so 4K doesn’t bring out the kind of sharp detail that you get with something shot on film, but the use of light and shadow cry out for HDR and a high bitrate.

Recommended for fans of stylish decadence and videogame violence.