As you know, movies based on video games generally are… not very good. Sometimes it’s because there’s no budget, or because the script and actors aren’t up to snuff, or because the director is horrible*. But video game movies persist in being bad even when there’s money and competence. But, as I said: the John Wick series has figured out the trick. If you want to make a video game movie, don’t base it on an existing video game.
John Wick 2, in other words, is the epitome of a movie made in the aesthetic of an over-the-shoulder shooter with almost no role-playing potential, a linear plot, and a fondness for cut-scenes. That was not a criticism. I am legitimately impressed that the director and writers realized that audiences would readily forgive, say, a running stealth battle in a subway using silenced pistols that nobody else in the subway noticed. And why shouldn’t audiences do that? Happens all the time in video games. And that’s true about everything else that’s superficially absurd in the film, ranging from the hyper-legalistic framework of the assassins’ community to the fact that there is an assassins’ community, and apparently everybody in NYC works for it**. Continue reading The John Wick series has cracked the video game movie code.