Pictured above: Fandango's Alicia Malone pitches a role for herself in the John Wick sequel as a villain called Red Fury. Star Keanu Reeves looks pretty terrified. 


 

 

John Wick vs. Everly: The Battle of the Badass Action Movies

 

IN THIS CORNER: JOHN WICK (in theaters October 24)

Starring Keanu Reeves as a former assassin who pulls himself back into the killing game after a group of thugs steal his car and kill his dog.

 

IN THIS CORNER: EVERLY (in theaters TBD 2015)

Starring Salma Hayek as a mobster's ex-girlfriend/sex slave who must shoot, punch, kick, scratch and crawl her through an avalanche of bad guys in order to survive once it's discovered she's slipping information to a police detective. 

 

 

JOHN WICK'S STRENGTHS

He's a killing machine with incredible shooting skills and a fondness for head shots. John Wick is also a romantic whose search for peace following his wife's death leads to an adorable relationship with a new puppy. Unfortunately for a bunch of Russian mobsters, they decided to mess with the wrong puppy.

 

EVERLY'S STRENGTHS

The ferocious beast she somehow discovers during her weakest moment, bent over a toilet, bruised, battered and stark naked, with a gun to her head and an army of nasty Yakuza guards five seconds away from storming the bathroom and ripping her to shreds. 

Note: There's no trailer for Everly yet, but check out the film's panel from this past Comic-Con below.

 

JOHN WICK'S WEAKNESSES

John Wick's biggest weakness lies in the love affair he's still having with his deceased wife. 

 

EVERLY'S WEAKNESSES

Like John Wick, Everly's biggest weakness is her family, in particular the mother and daughter she hasn't seen in four years. 

 

JOHN WICK'S BEST SCENE: A hard-core assassins brawl in a hotel room between Wick and Jenny, played by Adrianne Palicki.

 

 

EVERLY'S BEST SCENE: A sequence involving a villainous chemist whose vibe and freaky, long-nailed entourage feel as if they're straight out of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China.

 

JOHN WICK FUN FACT: The head count in John Wick stands at 84, which should put it somewhere in the top 10 of most kills in a movie, according to its directors (who think it's in fifth or sixth place on that list). 

 

EVERLY FUN FACT: Salma Hayek didn't just fight her way through an absurd amount of evil in the movie -- she also battled through a pretty intense real-life panic attack that plays itself out on-screen during a scene that finds her trapped in a sadistic torture device owned by a bad guy fittingly named the Sadist. 

 

WINNER: JOHN WICK

 

Make no mistake, Everly goes a full 12 rounds with John Wick. This is an impressive film from director Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2), who delivers the best stuff of his career here, proving he may be an action-movie force to be reckoned with in the years to come. What's most impressive about Everly is that it kicks so much butt even though its all set in one single room, with an occasional moment inside a bathroom or hallway. 

Fortunately for John Wick, though, it has the luxury of a larger budget and a pair of old-school stunt guys as its directors, including Chad Stahelski, whose first ever gig was working as Keanu Reeves' stunt double in Point Break. With veteran stunt guys behind the camera, the action sequences are just superb and some of the best you'll see this year. 

In John Wick, its its outrageous stunts are shoved down your throat because the dudes in charge this time around are more concerned with you seeing the action than they are in making it look pretty. We loved watching this world of different assassins who pay each other in gold coins, and have their own assassins hotel where no one can kill each other because it's considered to be neutral territory. It's those kinds of details that endear you to a world where it's predominantly about killing one character after another, and so on and so forth.

Ultimately both movies deliver adrenaline-fueled entertainment that's brutal and bloody, but also funny and sweet. They're about finding your humanity through family and... well, killing as many bad guys as it takes to accomplish that goal.