I think Keanu Reeves is hot. I will watch any movie with him in it. John Wick is a highly stylized film that has Keanu walking with purpose and a gun in hand through a techno beat filled night club in sharp suits, and yet it did not do for Keanu what Casino Royale did for Daniel Craig, and I came into John Wick biased in his favor. I was bored with the majority of John Wick. John Wick takes all the cliches and tropes, winks at the audience and amplifies them tenfold. Unfortunately it used the one trope that I hate above all others-it used the narrative framing device of the “how we got here” trope where the movie opens at the end and the rest of the movie shows how John Wick got there. Then it takes the expression, “He acted like I killed his dog or something” literally so it could employ the kick the dog trope so we could enjoy a ton of killing without feeling any empathy for those who opposed John Wick. I got it before they killed the puppy. They’re bad. John Wick had cool moments: any scene with John Leguizamo, mainly anytime Michael Nyqvist talked and when John Wick finally loses his crap when meeting with Nyqvist in person for the first time in the movie during one of the brief moments when they aren’t actively trying to kill each other. It was the one time that I genuinely believed everything that people kept saying about John Wick. I wonder how Alfie Allen feels about being the go to actor when a film or a tv show needs a loser wannabe tough son-probably employed. I needed more Bridget Regan-she caught my eye in Agent Carter, and John Wick may have wasted an opportunity to use her unhinged smile more. A great cast, a slick look, but ultimately I did not feel moved by all the beautiful and empty violence with its deliberate take on well-worn tropes, Sad Keanu and Matrix iconic Keanu. John Wick was missing something -perhaps it played it too straight and needed a sense of humor. I just wasn’t invested in it. The persona and reputation of John Wick did not match the man that I saw on screen despite his impressive moves. The creators of John Wick wanted us to like him so much that they inadvertently failed at making him as credibly ruthless and terrifying as he needed to be in all situations. The main characters in Drive and The Guest are more frightening than John Wick though less skilled. I don’t think that I could reason with them if I needed to, but John Wick, sure. If I can empathize with Keanu Reeves as a serial killer in The Watcher, I don’t need him to be stupidly vulnerable throughout John Wick to like him.