John Wick: Why Daisy had to die

***Review main contain spoilers***

A man believes he's put his dangerous past behind him. He's moved on. Gotten married, and is happy. That is until his wife dies, someone steals his car and kills his puppy.

When I first saw the previews for this movie I was in from jump. Why? Because Keanu Reeves is in it. I know, he's not the best actor and chances are he'll never win an Oscar but the man knows how to party. So with that said, I wasn't looking for stellar dialogue and awesome cinematography or any of that stuff. I expected a bloody explosion of gun fights, chase scenes and car crashes and that was precisely what I got.

John Wick loses his wife Helen (played by Bridget Moynahan - Blue Bloods)--not because of anything he's done but because of an illness-we're going to say it's cancer since they weren't specific and Cancer seems to always be the movie fallguy for terrible illnesses and deaths of loved ones. And he has no idea how he's going to go on. Then a night later (which is strange because I don't know a delivery company that delivers so late) he gets a delivery of a puppy along with a note from his wife telling him in order for him to learn to love another woman, he should start with the puppy. Now as you can imagine, he instantly clings to this thing for it was from his beloved and the pup's name was "Daisy" which they never explained why that was significant.  Anyways, John drives this kick ass muscle car (I think it's a Mustang Boss) to put gas in it with the puppy. These punks see him and wants to buy the car but John tells them it's not for sale because I mean come on! The car is sexy! They couldn't take no for an answer, breaks into his house in the middle of the night, beat him up, steals his car and killed his puppy.

Yes, ladies and gents--they killed his puppy.

John Wick then sets out to kill the guys who killed his puppy--but other people kept getting in his way so they too had to die.

It's a simple enough plot I think. Some may believe him going for blood for the death of a puppy is a little too much but you have to understand. Emotionally he was just gone because his wife is gone and the one thing he has left of her, that one thing he's placed his love into because she was dead was ripped from him too. That is what the lovely people of Criminal Minds call a "stressor" and had to be appeased.

The fight scenes could have been better choreographed. For example, one scene in a club where John is fighting with the bad guy's henchmen, he punched one guy, was about to shoot him when he realized the gun was empty. The guy stood there, waited for John to reload and shoots him in the head. There were way too may gaps--meaning the timing was off on many of the fight scenes.

And I cannot end this whole thing without the Hotel for Assassins. Who came up with this nutball idea? This is a hotel where ALL the city's Assassins hang out....at the same time....and all know each other....and are polite and cordial....and one bomb could have taken them all out! Now I know this is a movie and in movies we let things go and use our imagination but gimme a break! I mean come on! And I'm not even going to talk about the cop who knocks on John Wick's door after the neighbours complained of noise, looks in, sees a dead body and just go "well, have a good night John!"

That's another thing - with all this mayhem he causes in the city, dead bodies, car crashes, there was no one cop in sight except for the patrol officer at the beginning of the movie--say what now?

There were holes in the movie--I mean a lot of them--I mean mundo holes. The final fight scene was more than a little bit chaotic. The camera angles could have been way better and much tighter. A lot more work could have been done with this movie to make it something people could really sit down and enjoy--even with the superficial plot line. This had potential. I mean there were some awesome cameos in it like John Leguizamo and the guy who plays Coach in Death Race with Jason Statham as well Lance Reddick from Fringe - but I was let down.

I don't know. I'm a little on the fence with this one because I adore Keanu so hard and was really hoping it was something I could really gush about. But, it needs work--a lot of work.  Even William Dafoe's star power couldn't save this one.

If it comes on TV and you are home and bored and want something you don't have to think about, watch it. But don't expect anything major. I really don't think Daisy was avenged at all. Daisy was probably watching it going "dude, I died for this?"

*hugs*
KATO