The 2014 prequel ended with John Wick a widower and losing his puppy to the Russian assassins. Barely five days after the eventful first film, director Stahelski (who was a stuntman in Reeves’ Matrix Trilogy), unleashes a wave of some spectacular, and some all too predictable action scenes in John Wick : Chapter 2.

Santino’s (Ricardo Scamarcio) request for a job goes unheeded by Jonathan (Wick); the former loses no time in blowing up the wannabe retired assassin’s home to smithereens. Whereupon Wick’s friend Winston (a visibly aged Ian McShane) reminds him of the assassin’s oath; “there’s no going back in this business”.

Santino wants his sister Gianna, in Rome, killed so he can take her place at the top of the assassins’ hierarchy. But Santino’s head henchwoman, the mute Ares (Ruby Rose) and Gianna’s bodyguard Cassian (Common) have other plans and make life difficult (read : bone-crunching combats, car chases, shoulder-throws and the latest firearm gadgetry) for Wick.

Chapter 2 as a sequel plays to the gallery most of the time, with some hard-hitting stunts with weapons and arsenal which would make a James Bond film seem like a Cartoon Network kiddie show. In this sequel every person is a suspect unless proved otherwise. With goons and hoodlums materializing out of the woodwork, with atleast three of them perishing to a pencil (yes, you read that right), and with a body count of almost 150, John Wick’s Chapter 2 is reportedly the first movie that was permitted to be filmed in the transit terminal
below the World Trade Center.

There is a bit of humour too – such as when assassin Wick is asked in Rome, “Are you here for the Pope?”. The latest instalment in the J.W. series – one more is in the offing – remains strictly for diehard fans of the action genre.