A Spoiler Free Review Of The Movie John Wick
Everyone dies in John Wick. Everyone. Hahaha. just kidding. I know I promised that this would be a spoiler-free review. Not everyone dies in John Wick. It just seems that way. The movie starts off with the lead character dying, then moves to a funeral, then an animal dies, quickly followed by pretty much anyone else who appears on the screen. Some characters are felled before you even get a chance to know their names. “Hi, my name is Frank Sever-AAAAUUUUGGGHHHHH!” It’s that kind of movie. I’m pretty sure that a few people in the credits at the end got offed, solely out of habit.
Official Dogs On Drugs West Coast correspondent and Hollywood Insider Vesta Vayne pointed me towards a Huffington Post review that claims that the lead character alone kills 78 people. That’s a lot of deaths, although I guess that’s relative. In Detroit, for example, that’s a slow Tuesday afternoon. But make no mistake about it, John Wick is muhfuggin’ violent.
That’s not to say that the movie isn’t any good. It’s a lot of fun, especially if you’re a fan of Keanu Reeves or of seeing people get shot in the face. It’s fast-paced, stylish as all hell, and tremendous fun to watch, which always bugs me a little bit. I always feel weird cheering on a character who’s essentially orphaning kids. “Yes! Take that, bad guy! Now your kids will grow up without a daddy!” Weird.
What’s really weird is that we’re so casual about violence in this country while we tiptoe around the topic of sex as if we’re fucking Amish. All of us will grow up and wind up having sex one day (unless you were unlucky enough to be born with withered, non-functional genitalia, like Justin Beiber), but very few of us outside of Detroit will commit a murder. Sex is something that brings people joy, while murder permanently robs a person of the gift of life. Yet, Keanu Reeves can kill 78 people in cold blood, and no one blinks an eye, but we catch a split second glance of Janet Jackson’s nipple and everyone loses their goddamn mind.
I love this photo.
Janet: I’m SO cold, Justin!
Justin: That’s cause your goddamn titty is hanging out, bitch!
Remember when that happened? My God, you would have thought that she’d blown the Pope during Sesame Street to judge by the reaction that got. I, myself, didn’t see it until well after the fact. Here’s how I found out about it.
Greg: What happened? Did I miss something? I thought it was half time!
Some Guy: Justin Timberlake just ripped Janet Jackson’s shirt off!
Greg: What? Like, she was topless?
Some Guy: Well, no, it was part of her shirt. But you saw her tits.
Greg: Really?
Some Guy: Well, one tit. Actually just her nipple. And it had on some weird kind of, I dunno, nipple jewelry…
Greg: So what did you see, exactly?
Some Guy: About a half of a second of the tip of Janet Jackson’s right nipple.
And that was enough to spur congressional hearings, record fines levied by the FCC, and ultimately led to the death by lethal injection of Janet’s brother Michael, although to be honest I don’t really pay a lot of attention to the Jackson family, so I may have gotten that part wrong. The Jackson family is like a particularly bad acid trip: You see a lot of shit, none of it makes any sense, and it’s a whole lot easier if you just ignore it all and pretend it didn’t happen.
It certainly looks like a bad acid trip, doesn’t it?
In fact, you could make a fun game out of that if you were so inclined:
Acid Trip or Jackson Family?
Host: Ok, are we ready contestants? Here is your first clue: Bubbles the chimp, a single spangled glove, and a wandering 50 foot robot that terrorizes the desert outside of Las Vegas…
(buzzer rings)
Host: Yes, contestant number 1, you have an answer?
Contestant #1: Well, that makes absolutely no fucking sense in this universe or any other, so I’m going to say it’s all stuff related to the Jackson family.
Host: You are correct!
(Latoya Jackson runs onstage dressed in pudding, blows the contestant)
That robot thing isn’t made up, mind you. Michael Jackson seriously wanted a 50 foot robotic Michael Jackson robot to wander the Nevada desert to advertise the fact that he was, I dunno, completely apeshit loonball crazy on drugs I guess.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind having a giant Dogs On Drugs-bot roaming around Phoenix. That sounds like it could be a lot of laughs.
News anchor: Breaking news: a 100 foot android broke into a liquor store this afternoon, mooned a senior citizen center, then opened fire with a powerful bank of laser beams, vaporizing a local auditorium where washed up, B-list musician Kenny Loggins was playing a concert. Luckily, there was nobody in attendance, so no one important died. Now over to Ken Brickley, with sports!
Maybe I could team up with the Stephen Hawking Transformer and do a festive jig around the holidays or something. Something to think about, I guess.
All of which is meant to say that I highly recommend seeing John Wick, giving it four out of five Robotic Michael Jacksons.
All that fuss over some pop-stars breast.
In reality, that wasnt her nipple at all. It was Michael’s nipple sewn onto a slice of Jermaine’s left butt-cheek. They like to cut and paste in that family. It’s a well-known fact that all us J-5 insiders are privy too. In fact, on their memorabilia website, they offer a Michael-nipple/Jermain-buttcheek replica. It’s only $279. I would get it but I’m black. Like, real black. I don’t go in for all that bleaching shit that they spends millions on. Except my asshole. I bleach the hell out of that real-estate.
You’re welcome.
That comment is a full 80% less crazy than anything any Jackson family member has ever said.
That that, bad guy.
Sigh. There, are you happy now?
Thrilled to fucking death, my man.
78 seemed like a low-ball number, right? I would have thought at least a hundred.
Anyway. I thought the movie was tons of fun. And yes, it IS a little weird to cheer on a guy that basically mows down everyone in sight.
I’m not all that bothered by super-stylized action sequences (except when the whole thing happens in a series on one second cuts. I hate that music video-type of editing). I am, however, annoyed when sex scenes are overly stylized, as usually found in American movies. I know it’s a movie, suspension of disbelief, blah blah. But seriously, in real life sex is nothing like that.
Of course, in real life, Keanu would not have been able to off 78 people with no police interference.
So basically, I’m a hypocrite.
I don’t like A-Team stylized violence, where no one gets killed, or where the hero emerges totally unscathed. I like it a little bit real, I guess just enough to justify me continuing to suspend my disbelief.
Terrible dialog, though, will instantly ruin any action scene for me. No one yells “dang it!” when they get shot in the arm.
I guess I never really thought about stylized sex scenes. I’m a guy, though, so I’m probably too busy looking for boobs to use my critical thinking skills.
You could name the Dogs On Drugs-bot ravaging Phoenix “Ha-boob”.
“My God, you would have thought that she’d blown the Pope during Sesame Street”
Classic Dogs on Drugs. Never change.
It’s a deal!