John Wick versus Ethan Hunt.

By all accounts, Keanu Reeves is a nice guy. And he has done good action movies in the past.

But, he is just not believable as this ass-kicking assassin.

IMDB tells me that Reeves is almost 55... so 54-ish when he made this movie. Tom Cruise is two years older.

I can buy Tom Cruise as an effective Ethan Hunt, but I just cannot buy Keanu Reeves as a hardass assassin.

In this movie, particularly, Reeves looks heavy and slow. He runs with this bow-legged trot, his gut hanging over his belt. During the fight scenes, you can see him reacting to blows before they happen. (Even his stuff in the Matrix looks painfully robotic and staged...).

Cruise runs like a madman still, does his own stunts, many of which are professional by the standards of stuntmen. They take your breath away.

Meanwhile, the best Reeves could do was some interesting but, otherwise, forgettable stuff on a horse. (This is more a comment on the director and the stunt co-ordinator, than Reeves himself I suppose.)

PS. The bit with the parkour dogs WAS pretty original.

Story wise, the MI films are taut thrillers. The last three or four have all built on an expanding story line. The first Wick film started as a taut action flick. But the two subsequent movies have upped the mythology to the level of ludicrousness.

In some ways, the Wick films are structured like computer games... 15 minutes of action, 5 minute mundane cut scene, rinse and repeat. This movie does nothing story wise... we simply see Wick dealing with bigger and bigger bosses. This movie ends at the same point as the previous movie... Wick an outcast ready to take on hundreds more bounty hunters.

Didn't pay to watch this one, will likely skip the next altogether.