John Wick: Chapter Two

#StokerScore 6/10

Do you ever find yourself eating in a restaurant that you occasionally like to go to because the food is usually good and it's one of the best places to get a specific dish that you like? Not the only place that you can buy it, just a preference? Yeah, me too. That was what I was doing just before watching the highly anticipated second outing for Keanu's latest franchisee. 

It was a Thai-themed place that does pretty good Som Tam. For those of you unfamiliar with Thai food, this is a vegetarian, shredded papaya salad that is mixed with tomatoes, green beans, peanuts, chillies and fish sauce. It's pretty fiery and I think it goes really well with grilled meats or other finger food. If I was going to review the meal and the restaurant, I'd probably tell you that they didn't meet my expectations. The salad wasn't as spicy as usual, there was an obvious lack of attention to detail with the shredding of the papaya - some of which had come off the mandolin in a whole, slightly serrated slice rather than the individual julienne. The grilled chicken also seemed half-hearted with some bits being a single bone with no actual meat on it. Top that off with the waiter's apology that they'd run out of beer and I left feeling decidedly underwhelmed. The Som Tam was still Som Tam, just not the kind of Som Tam that leaves me with a big smile on my face (trust me, it does when it's good).

Remarkably, this was pretty much how I left the movie too. Chapter Two ticks all of the boxes that made Chapter One such a huge success; guns, mixed martial arts, sartorial villain and this time even reminded me of a couple of Bond set pieces which if you're familiar with classic Bond movies will hopefully stand out to you as much as they did to me. But it lacked the heart, the soul that made the first one so fun and not as predictable.

Maybe I'm too cynical. Maybe I should try to be less subjective and not allow my frame of mind or mood to cloud my judgement. Maybe if the Som Tam had been better I would have enjoyed the movie more, but I doubt it.

Keanu is still Keanu, Peter Stormare makes a great bad guy and is one of two characters to resume an on screen relationship with Reeves (Stormare played Lucifer in Constantine and Morpheus makes a return, or at least Laurence Fishburne does) and the transfer to Rome, highlighting that the crime syndicates are global, is a nice touch. Yet still I felt underwhelmed. It was like watching a chef make something he's made a thousand times and, rather than be interested in investing the dish with his enthusiasm, he just looks at the finished article and says "yeah, thet'll do".

As I said, the boxes are ticked and at times there is enough excitement to put you closer to the edge of your seat, you'll just never quite reach that far because something inside tells you it isn't really worth it.

Solace

#StokerScore 7.5/10

I'd like you to think of actors who play themselves in every movie, those actors who may change their physical appearance, but never their voice... which is the first name that springs to mind? For me it will always be Sean Connery who has taken that polished Scottish brogue and, without changing it, played a Russian submarine captain, an alien immortal with strong links to Egypt, A King from ancient Greece and a Moroccan Sheik, to name just a few. Not for Connery is the need to mimic an accent to assume a role, no in his case he allows the way the character is written and the dialogue produced to do the job. And my word hasn't he had a successful career from it?

"shay it, I dare you"

Then again there are the actors who are just excellent when it comes to mimicry. Peter Sellers in just about anything, Gary Oldman who whilst having a couple of stinkers in there is never afraid to try something different, and my personal favourite, Laurence Olivier. Different actors, different acting styles.

As a cautionary paragraph, let's not forget what happens when actors try accents that they should never really have attempted in the first place or which at the very least should have been polished a tad more. Plenty of those to choose from but I think that seemingly any American trying to pull off an English accent could make the list, be it Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Don Cheadle in Ocean's 11, and obviously topping the list, the man they all used as a role model, Mr. Dick Van Dyke.

"cor blimey guv'nor, it's a right old pea-souper out there tonight"

Anthony Hopkins is an actor who has tried to use accents but in more recent years seems to have convinced casting directors that his character should be Welsh. There's nothing wrong with Welsh, there are many famous actors from Wales, but I've always felt that Anthony Hopkins should have stuck to the Connery method and never moved. Saying that, and maybe it's Hopkins age or the roles that he's currently choosing, but there does seem to be a world-weariness, an acceptance of the world order and that he's too late to change it, creeping into all of his performances. I hope that his role in the tv show Westworld is going to change this.

Look at  Silence of the Lambs and in his increased screen time in Red Dragon. In these, Hopkins did enough with his English accent (the character is originally Lithuanian) to get an Oscar for the first and regret to agreeing to do the second whereas in Thor, The Rite, Beowulf and The Wolfman he returns to his normal, world-weary Welsh. Even as President Nixon that Welsh accent seemed to dominate but his mimicry of Jodie Foster's Southern accent in Silence showed great skill. As I said, maybe it's the roles he's choosing.

if you have a problem with my accents, come have a chat over dinner

I don't believe that we're ever really told that Hopkins' character in Solace is American, just that he's a psychic and a doctor so this allows Hopkins to get on with being that wise and sage-like character that he's perfected. His character's past also means he can afford to be pretty pessimistic, sarcastic and downright obnoxious if he chooses to be. The other actors that surround him, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Colin Farrell and Abbie Cornish are all very good but what really lifts this above its serial killer flick cousins is the story. Weirdly, I don't think it's a particularly original movie as I was continually getting the feeling that I'd seen bits of it before in many other movies, but I did end the film feeling satisfied and that it had been a worthwhile hour and forty minutes spent.

If you like serial killer/police flicks, this movie is for you. If you like any of the key actors, there's enough here for everyone. If you like a different spin on a common movie trope, this is for you. Hell, find less than two hours and enjoy some Solace....