Wick catches fire in Chapter 2
Reeves returns to action role, brings along some Matrix friends
LOS ANGELES — A Keanu Reeves movie sometimes misses the mark or doesn’t connect. But his John Wick flick scored with critics and managed a direct hit at the world-wide box office.
Three years later, Reeves is excited to be back as the deadly assassin in John Wick: Chapter 2.
“It’s really nice, since the opening of the first one, to be a part of a film that has attracted so much affection,” says the 52-year-old with the sequel cast promoting the movie. “For me, it’s pretty rare.”
The second film in the series is even more of a Matrix reunion than the first one.
Back again is filmmaker Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the first Wick picture and was co-leader of the 87Eleven Action Design fight team on the Matrix trilogy.
New to the John Wick universe is Laurence Fishburne, who played Morpheus to Reeves’s Neo in the Wachowskis’ popular Matrix franchise.
Apparently, lobbying his friend paid off.
“I said, ‘Dude, John Wick was sick — killer — so you got to put me down,’ ” says Fishburne, recalling a conversation he had with Reeves.
Apparently, screenwriter Derek Kolstad and Stahelski were way ahead of the actors: The Bowery King character in the sequel was especially written for Fishburne
In Chapter 2, Reeves as Wick meets up with Fishburne as Bowery King during Wick’s mission of mayhem when he’s coerced out of retirement by a contract he’s forced to take because of a blood oath marker.
The deadly assignment takes Wick to Rome and then New York, where he battles multiple hitmen in assorted firefights and martialarts faceoffs. The bloody body count in the sequel is 141 compared to 84 in the original.
Certainly, director Stahelski ups the action ante. But he wanted to develop a clearer understanding of the John Wick realm, as well. It’s where hired killers have a code of conduct and feel safe only in a hotel haven called The Continental run by the unflappable Winston (Ian McShane.)
“It’s always challenging to build on what you did,” Stahelski says. “We wanted to expand on that and give a little more insight into the world.”
The director knew he could rely on Reeves’s focus and dedication to the task at hand, which required the actor to devote himself to months of martial-arts training and gunplay exercises they call gun-fu.
And like the first movie, Reeves did a lot of his car stunt work, which required him to reverse spin, skid and accelerate his vehicle to dangerous speeds.
As usual, the actor’s quick to point out his training in martial arts does not qualify him as an expert in the field.
“You can’t really fake a judo throw,” he says. “But you can get help from the person you’re throwing when they launch themselves.”
Still, rapper and actor Common confirms that Reeves’s intensity impressed him when Common as bodyguard Cassian confronts Reeves’s Wick in a clash that counts as one of the film’s centre pieces.
After two months of training for the fierce hand-to-hand combat sequences, Common felt prepared but understood that he would need extra effort to match Reeves energy on set — and he was right.
“He’s the hardest-working individual I have ever worked with in film,” Common says of Reeves. “And he doesn’t get enough credit for his acting in this — he shows his heart and soul and really shows vulnerability.”
Meanwhile, prognostications indicate Reeves might be back for a third John Wick — and he’s all for it.
The Toronto native has already had fans tell him they’re looking forward to Chapter 2.
“Can’t wait to see the movie,” says Reeves, quoting them. “But you don’t kill another dog do you?”
That’s a reference to the death of puppy in the first film that prompts Wick to seek revenge on the perpetrator.
And yes, Wick does own a dog in the second one — but he offers assurances.
“There were no animals hurt in the production of this film,” Reeves says.