The whole point of those movies is to see the action. The martial arts, guns, cars, everything is an incredible stunt or piece of action camerawork. John Wick is what happened when stuntpeople made a movie. People liked it because it looked realish and the stunts were cool. So they made more.

I enjoyed the first movie; The "I hear you have struck my son." scene sold it for me; if the movie was perfectly cliche that scene would have ended "Sorry sir, it'll never happen again!" while a red laser dot is wiggling up his chest and then Viggo says "I know." and we hear a gun shot through the phone. No, that "He stole John Wick's car, sir; and he killed his dog." "Oh." It was a fresh helping of big Hollywood action movie. And for a big improbable ridiculous one man army action movie, it still had some restraint. It was at least a little grounded.

The second movie went right up its own ass. So, literally everyone everywhere in the world is a secret underground contract killer? I haven't seen...I saw a thread about "there probably won't be a John Wick 5 because Keanu's knees" so 3 or 4. I enjoyed the first one.

Brain off. Guns go pew

I love the first one and would argue it's fairly grounded, it's the sequels that quickly got unhinged.

You seem to hate them for the exact reason people love it - that's the sign of a cool movie. It's not a work of art by any stretch, but it knows what it is and it executes well.

I haven't seen them, but based on your description, I think this xkcd explains how these movies were conceived:

(source)

I find they are always on when I stay at hotels. A few years ago it was always Harry Potter, now its always John Wick. The first movie is pretty good to watch in one sitting. But I am convinced the rest of the series is mean to be consumed in 5-10 minute chunks. Like coming and going through the hotel room while your doing other things. For that its pretty good cause you don't have to know any story to follow it for a minute or two. Just have to remember that you don't need to know who is who because they will probably die in the story soon anyways.

It's not that deep, you just shut your brain off and go "People died lol!"

It honestly wasn't until the last movie that I gave a shit about the plot. I feel like till the finale, there really wasn't any deeper meaning than "Wow Keanu Reeves is a bad motherfucker with a gun! Who knew? Oh right everyone who saw the Matrix when it came out 50 years ago, but still!"

I didn't like these either. I think it would have been better if he WASN'T already some badass guy with access to firearms but instead just some regular dude that got his life ruined, and then he had to figure out how to get revenge on everyone while being just an average guy. They could have gotten real creative with the methods he uses to locate people, obtain firearms, plot his revenge, etc. I feel like his character went into the whole thing already having the upper hand. It would have been a better movie to watch him rise up from real rock bottom and still kick everyone's ass in the end.