I just re-watched the original John Wick in preparation for the sequel and enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Dredd and Fury Road, similarly old fashioned action flicks. Both of those movies have a lot in common with John Wick’s fictional universe, the world-building of which is more suggestive than fleshed out. The fact that the sketchy people who live there have their own laws and currency makes the setting fascinatingly mysterious, much like Wick himself. Yet my favorite thing about the movie is that when characters say things like, “John’s not exactly the boogeyman… he’s who you send to kill the boogeyman,” you don’t snicker as you would in a movie which takes itself too seriously.

The entire point of John Wick is to entertain. As is such, a lot of it is style over substance, but it’s not all style, and unlike Tony Scott’s Domino era there’s not so much style it resembles a music video more than a movie. I think what I’m saying is John Wick is a damn near perfect film for my particular tastes. Besides, aren’t you getting sick of little goody two-shoes like Jason Bourne and all the other PG-13 action heroes?

In the first film, a grieving John Wick murdered everyone even remotely connected to the death of his puppy, which was his deceased wife’s final gift to him. At the end of the movie he broke into an animal shelter and stole a pit bull, then walked off into the sunrise. And when Chapter 2 comes along, it’s really good to see John Wick and that pit bull are still together, even though you can estimate the dog’s plot armor around 50%… 75 if you don’t believe they’d kill two dogs in the same franchise and somewhere around 25 if you remember how graphic the first dog slaying was… that long streak of blood was some fucked-up shit, after all.

Chapter 2 expands on the same criminal underworld as seen in the first movie, this time revealing the existence of a blood contract signed by Wick sometime before the events of the first film. The beneficiary of the contract has complete control over Wick, and Wick will never be free until he performs an impossible task. When Wick politely asks for the deal to be rescinded, his house explodes, which leads you to wonder what else he’ll get taken from him.

So here was my worry going into the movie: nobody wants to see John Wick put through as much hell as he was put through in the first movie. Yet if they don’t put him through the ringer, would we lose the satisfaction of seeing him shoot dozens of people in their faces and heads? As it turns out, they don’t put Wick through the same level of shit they put him through in the first movie… at least not up front. (Let’s just say—extremely vague spoiler—he doesn’t exactly walk into the sunrise at the end this time.) There’s a slower burn leading to Wick’s ultimate melting point, but the action scenes are no less exciting. In fact, they’re a little more creative this time around, which you’ll see during the very first stunt sequence of the movie.

And holy shit this movie is beautiful.

If you’re a fan of the original film, you’re almost certainly going to like this one just as much if not more. I don’t think I’ve been this pumped up since I saw Fury Road. If you want them to keep making these kinds of movies for adults, then go see it instead of whatever other bullshit they’ve got coming out right now. Hell, see it twice.

True Lies was the most expensive movie ever made when it came out (I remember a rumor that theaters were going to charge higher ticket prices just for this movie, but that never came to be). Unlike other big budget films of the era (Waterworld comes to mind), you can actually see where all the money went. Its action scenes are among the richest I have ever seen, the stunts are legendary, and it hurts to think we may never see actual fighter jets and helicopters interacting with actors ever again.

I’m not exaggerating here: True Lies has some seriously spectacular action. It’s disappointing to realize just a few years later Nicholas Cage was pretending to drive a CGI car while Jedi were becoming digitized dummies. You just can’t cheat your stunts and expect the audience to be wowed. The action sequence on a Florida Keys bridge blows most movies out of the water… and that’s not even the finale.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, Harry Tasker, is a spy who masquerades as a computer salesman. His wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) doesn’t have a clue what her husband really does for a living, but she longs for excitement in her dull life. Meanwhile their teenage daughter thinks her father’s a massive tool because, outwardly, he is. Why a boring white collar worker would have a bodybuilder’s body isn’t important. No one in the movie bothers to notice.

What’s strange about True Lies is the fact it forgets it’s an action movie about midway through. Early on, Harry and his partner (Tom Arnold) are hot on the trail of jihadists who’re attempting to smuggle nuclear warheads into the States. But when Harry discovers Helen is seeing another man (Bill Paxton) he diverts every bit of his team’s intelligence to finding out the man’s identity. Without spoiling too much of it, Helen is subjected to a cruel prank by a stranger, only to be subjected to another cruel prank by the very man she married. The morality of it all is questionable, but, uh, I don’t go to the movies to see saints. I enjoyed it even though the long, action-free middle of the movie might feel like a derailment to some.

And it’s hard to top the last forty minutes. Most movies which combine action and comedy suck at one or the other (often both, as almost every Lethal Weapon rip-off will prove), but True Lies is the rare action film with perfect comedic timing. In one scene Schwarzenegger is hanging from the reins of the horse which flung him over the side of a high-rise building. He glances up to the horse and begs it to save his life. Somehow, the filmmakers goad the horse into smiling back at him. In another scene, in which Schwarzenegger is injected with a truth serum, Helen asks if they’re going to die. He replies, “Yep!”

This isn’t just routine comedy squeezed into the film because audiences expect it to be there. This is genuinely funny stuff, and the timing of it—as well as the editing of the action scenes—reaches a musical quality. Not only was True Lies the glorious swan song of the 80s and early 90s action film, it satirizes the genre at the same time. In Terminator 2, director James Cameron took care to show why his vehicles exploded so as not to disturb our suspension of disbelief. In True Lies, vehicles explode because he’s indulging in gleeful absurdity. And my god it’s infectious.

I watch True Lies practically every time I make adjustments or upgrades to my home theater, but I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it more than I do now.

Real-life musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson play The Driver and The Mechanic dispassionately, as if they’re auditioning for 2001: A Space Odyssey. While I appreciate what they did here I almost wish they took a backseat role to the mean ’55 Chevy their characters drive, which seems to be the real star of the film for the first twenty minutes or so. We get a glimpse into the boys’ street racing lifestyle shortly before they pick up a hitchhiker who’s simply named The Girl.

The Girl is played by model Laurie Bird, who probably would have gone on to become a household name if she hadn’t died at the age of 25. She only appeared in two other movies, one of which was Annie Hall, the other of which was the director’s follow-up, Cockfighter. Like Blacktop, it also featured Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton.

Oates’ character is called G.T.O., because that’s what he drives, and he likes to pick up hitchhikers so he can tell them his life story. Yet G.T.O. has a different story for each of his hitchhikers and we only get a hint of his real identity when he briefly ends up drunk in the passenger seat of the Chevy. Early on in the movie, The Driver and The Mechanic goad G.T.O. into racing across the country for pink slips, but G.T.O. is so unsuited for the race that the Chevy drivers frequently pull over to let him catch up. It’s no fun for them to get a huge lead on the G.T.O.

What Oates has done here is something quietly nutty and often humorous. He’s a big reason to watch the movie, which might be disappointing to anyone watching Blacktop for the thrills. Go into it expecting more Easy Rider than The Fast and the Furious and you’ll probably like it. I picked up the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray, but I wouldn’t have been terribly disappointed had I settled for the much cheaper DVD version… it just doesn’t take much advantage of 5.1 sound and HD.