JOHN WICK

(Chad Stahelski, David Leitch, 2014)

John Wick achieves a strange sort of perfection.
It keeps certain elements blessedly simple; the plot, for example, finds former legendary assassin Wick (Keanu Reeves, arguably the leading action star of the last couple of decades in terms of pure strike rate - The Matrix, Speed and this is some action c.v...) brooding on the recent death of his beloved wife (a Bridget Moynihan seen only in flashback and on iphone videos). Prior to her death she has arranged for a puppy to be delivered to give him something to love, but when nasty Russian gangster (Alfie Allen) takes a fancy to Wick's vintage Mustang, a nocturnal invasion of his house leaves Wick badly beaten, without his car, and with a dead puppy.
Thus we have a revenge thriller, and you know it is going to be bloody by the response of the elder gangsters to the youngster's impulsive act - their terror of Wick evident in a few facial expressions and awed dialogue exchanges. After the first big action set-piece we realise that this film is set in a sort of comic book universe wherein the criminal underworld exists by a set of odd rules, trading gold coins for a body clean-up service or access to a hotel and bar called the Continental, where there is no violence or business permitted. That explains the heightened colours of the photography here, which is stylish and often beautiful.
Even more beautiful is the action choreography. Action scenes are often misleadingly labelled "balletic", when more usually they are chopped up and hyperactively edited for visceral impact. But this film - directed by two former stuntmen and second unit directors, who obviously intimately know their stuff - is shot like a classic musical. While the camera moves steadily, the takes are long and beautifully choreographed and blocked; combatants dart and tumble in and out of frame as Reeves despatches them in ludicrous numbers, generally with a pistol but also with his fists and feet, blades, assault rifles and even automobiles. There is a dark wit to some of this - notably in the inventive, quick solutions Wick improvises to certain problems in combat -and it is all incredibly satisfying on a couple of levels. It has the obvious pleasure of the righteous revenge film - they killed his puppy!! - and the satisfaction of watching action that is coherent, stylish and pleasingly impactful.
It goes on a little too long but it has lots of great character actors in minor roles (a couple of The Wire alumni, Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane and John Leguizamo all pop up), always looks and sounds beautiful, is brilliantly serious in its goofy silliness, and generally makes you wish every action film could be so good. It is also great to see Reeves embrace action, where he is effective as Liam Neeson; brawny, broody and elegant of movement, he is perfect here. And in those intricate, hilarious action scenes, it feels almost transcendent and tremendous; perfect.

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

(John M. Chu, 2013)

It can be tricky to define, the difference between stupidity and silliness. And while the G.I. Joe films both seem monumentally stupid, in reality they're merely silly. They don't aspire to intelligence, don't feature great, tight plotting, or acute characterisation or jaw-dropping cinematic invention. But then they don't have any pretences about themselves either. All they try to do is tell the sort of ripping yarn a 12 year old boy might like. The first G.I. Joe film, Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, was an almost hallucinatory piece of pre-adolescent pulp delirium, based quite faithfully on the Marvel Comics inspired by the Hasbro toyline featuring a range of International soldiers who form a fighting force to oppose the vicious sci-fi terrorists of the Cobra organisation. Those comics mix science fiction technology, war story characterisation and plotting with a hint of soap and a fair portion of ninja action. Sommers copied all that, stuffing his movie with villainous masterminds, lots of groovy masked men, humungous explosions, tons of martial arts, a flashback to a characters origin every ten minutes or so, ultimatums delivered to world leaders, action scenes in exotic corners of the globe, crappy comedy, and hot bad girls in bondage gear who had good hearts underneath.
Chu isn't quite so gleeful in his range, telling a tighter, duller, more conventional story of the Joes double-crossed, mostly destroyed, then seeking revenge. He retains a few of the first films more successful elements, including the rival ninjas, raised and trained together, who formed the fan-favourite geekbait of the comics glory years (played by a charismatic Lee Byung-hun as Storm Shadow and Ray Park under a mask as the mute Snake Eyes). The best scene in the film - perhaps in both films - is the extended action sequence as Snake Eyes and new protege Jinx attempt to kidnap Storm Shadow from his Himalayan retreat, filled with thrillingly vertiginous shots of ninjas balletically battling on ropes hung from cliff-tops, all of it shot with a clear elegance and rhythm that serve as a reminder that Chu made his name as a director of musicals, of a sort.
The plot revolves around a good old-fashioned quest for global domination and is foiled through good old-fashioned firepower, with the biggest scenes in the film decorated with huge orange explosions and shouting, gurning figures in motion. Those characters have loose personalities but absolutely no depth or emotional weight - Dwayne Johnson's Roadblock seems to willingly abandon his family in his quest for revenge, Adrianne Palicki's Lady Jaye is saddled with ridiculously shallow daddy issues which are brought up through her spats with Bruce Willis' Colonel Joe Coulson, while the villains are just several shades of pure, insane evil. The story is formed by a series of escapes, attacks and scenes where people plan escapes and attacks, but it all looks slick and pretty when it needs to, and Chu keeps it rolling and making sense (for the most part).
If it lacks the sense of fun of the first film, its still somewhat refreshing to see a blockbuster so lacking in pomposity and so unafraid of seeming so utterly silly. This, after all, is a film unafraid of using RZA as the sensei of a ninja clan, depicting the destruction of London, having its heroes shoot remote control bullets, and giving Walton Goggins a scene-stealing cameo as the warden of a cryogenic prison deep underground in Germany. The G.I. Joe films are willing to try anything crazy in the hopes that something will work, and that's an endearing quality.