This Wick replay has Ana de Armas as Eve getting incessantly pounded, while managing to find inventive ways to inflict gruesome pain and death on hundreds of brutal assailants. This script is plugged right into the John Wick assembly line between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4 where we, once again, check into The Continental run by Winston (Ian McShane) where there’s always an uneasy truce among assassins.
After Eve sees her father murdered, the young girl tries to run, but is instead turned over to The Director (Anjelica Huston) of Rouska Roma. She is to become part of the tribe of ballet dancing, martial arts, ballistics expert killers and nothing less than perfection is demanded, as evidenced by Eve’s bloody toes after hours trying to perfect her en pointe turns.
In a moment of compassion, Eve’s trainer, Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) tries to help by giving her strategic advice to keep her going, which eventually saves her over and over again. It’s “Fight Like a Girl!” And that’s what she follows when sent out in the field for her first assignment to save a young woman from being kidnapped in a dance club. High tension and gory action is set in motion and keeps escalating in long pounding violent scenes till the bitter end.
Ana de Armas has very little dialogue from writers Shay Hatten (Wick 3 and 4, and Emerald Fennell) (Saltburn, Promising Young Woman). She is completely deadpan through it all, only showing a stone-faced expression. Eve is supposed to be hard core, but you get very little personality and even less emotion as she goes through never ending sequences of hard-core stunts.
Director Len Wiseman is more than adept as staging action sequences but he doesn’t let the audience really root for de Armas because there’s never enough of a break to let the audience respond or cheer. It is never ending with Cinematographer Romain Lacourbas catching every brutal blow. you see Eve punching, kicking, shooting, stabbing, throwing dinner plates, bombs, and huge flumes of lethal flames. Much of which you can see if you watch the trailer.
Keanu Reeves has the ability to show nothing in his face, but you feel him seething underneath. We don’t get the same intensity from Eve. Even though she is supposed to be stone-faced, there should be some kind clenched expression, steam coming out of her ears or signs of hate somewhere. What’s more disturbing, she doesn’t even get bruises and is still wearing lipstick, no matter how much she’s thrown around, stabbed, bludgeoned and battered. Armas’s character hardly appears showing cuts, bruises, torn clothes, or even much sweat!
But we have to say that the ultra-bloody battles rack up a most impressive body count and the choreography of the glass smashing, table tossing and body slams will definitely make you wince and twist in your seat. One of the more fun ways Eve dispatches her opponents is with hand grenades. She also has a particular affinity for picks, hatchets and flame throwers.
There are only a few funny lines in Shay Hatten’s script, but with so little dialogue they stand out. When Eve is talking to a purveyor of weapons named Frank, he delivers the line, “Let’s be Frank” with his name tag prominently displayed, which gets a laugh. And there’s another line about checking out of The Continental well delivered after an obvious reason to do so.
Eve’s hunt finally takes her into a picturesque Alpine village where she encounters her ultimate enemy, The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). The chase through completely foreign territory for Eve to negotiate makes absolutely no sense. But there’s a special surprise for her. We wish this reveal wasn’t given away in the trailer and promotion, but Keanu Reeves shows up in all his black suited glory for a few minutes of mayhem and genuine emotion. Did producers want to make sure audiences would buy more tickets knowing the original John Wick is in the film?
Credit Ana de Armas for going through grueling training. Until John Wick appears in cameo, the unrelenting stunts become repetitive, but the Evanescence “Fight Like A Girl” over credits brings some fire with a post clip teasing the possibility of more.
Lionsgate 2 Hours 5 Minutes R
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