The first John wick was really good.
It was entertaining I suppose, but I’d have appreciated it more if they’d have developed the characters a bit more and gone into a bit more depth about the high table, and the assassins ‘guild’ or whatever it is and made it a bit more political and story driven.
The John Wick character is just an avatar. That’s why in the first film he loses his wife, his dog and his car in the first 20ish minutes and it’s essentially just action from there on in. They used the dead dog so as to make the plot device obvious to the audience, but stopping just shy of “nudge nudge, wink wink” 4th wall territory.
IIRC most people who hated the film were really critical of the lack of plot and character development, and most people who enjoyed it were glad that it was dealt with in such an efficient manner as opposed to some kind of failed contrivance.