As I left the theater an elderly couple was walking beside me. The wife laughingly said said “That was a lot of killing!” I couldn’t help but laugh and walk away because she was absolutely right. John Wick is out for blood, and its blood he gets. The movie opens with a screaming muscle car chasing an equally loud super bike down the streets of New York City, and it only gets better. It’s not just the action either, the way its filmed and the energy that surrounds the protagonist multiplies all of the excellent action that occurs.

John Wick: Chapter 2 picks up right where we left off with the original John Wick. However if you haven’t seen the original John Wick, that’s really no big deal. I personally recommend seeing the first installment before the second, as it is just as good.

John Wick once again is pulled out of “retirement” and thrown into the deadly secret world of international high class crime. An old business partner that saved his life is asking for a favor and due to code of honor, Wick must abide. But Wick is no ordinary dude, and everyone else in the movie knows it. Cops, EMTs, “Business” Owners, they all know his name, and most wisely choose to stay out of his way.

In this movie bigger is better and John Wick kills about three times the amount of people he killed in the first film. The best part of John Wick 2 is actually the how Director Chad Stahelski filmed it. Keanu Reeves does all his own stunts and really it’s quite impressive.

Action movies are famous for flickering quick cuts, but not this one. Long shots are the name of the game, they create an excellent realism that puts the viewer in an insane battle. They have this nonstop flow which only adds to the intensity of the scenes. Wick is not invincible either, and the audience knows it. He gets hit. A lot. So when Wick barely stumbles away from killing 20 men in 3 minutes the realism becomes all the more true. There’s this distinct panicky vibe you get whenever an action scene starts and it’s something most action movies only dream of.

Occasionally the action is broken up with witty lines and funny moments that to my surprise, were actually kind of funny. When the audience wasn’t watching an action scene or the tail end of one, they laughed when they were suppose to. There weren’t any moments when the audience was laughing when they shouldn’t have, which is always a good sign.

As full of action this movie was, it also had a lot of charisma. Laurence Fishburne is in the movie so the inevitable Matrix plugs were a welcome satisfaction. Also one of the later scenes is filmed inside a totally mirrored room, very similar to one of the ending scenes in Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. The scene works just as well and operates very similarly. The mirrors disorient the audience along with the people in the movie and it creates something vivid with color and bloody, precise action.

There are so many things John Wick: Chapter 2 brings to the table and it nails what it came to do. The colors are beautiful, the cast is full of great talent like Common and Ruby Rose, and the movie never really fades. It only gets better. John Wick isn’t finished either. John Wick will be back, and I can’t wait. 5 out of 5.