John Wick: Chapter 4
Year: 2023 // Runtime: 169 min // URL: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10366206/
Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller // Producer: Chad Stahelski // The Internet Has Rated It: 7.9
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, George Georgiou
I Give It: 12/13 Tumbles Down Ridiculous Long Flights of Stairs
Sad I missed it in the theater here but just got around to watching this at home.
Thought this would be a good opportunity to test out how compatible my personal movie note / reviews I do in ObsidianMD are when copied and pasted into beehaw (or whatever other fediverse platforms)
Like all the other John Wick movies, let’s just get this out of the way: The plot is… present. You don’t have to think about it any more than that and if you do, you’re ruining it for yourself. It is almost completely unimportant, nobody is watching this for the plot.
Here’s John Wick, he’s a badass that likes dogs. The ultimate assassin who doesn’t want to assassinate anymore, just wants to be at peace with a dog somewhere and he misses his wife. Rules for the assassin way of life (“the old ways”) are introduced at convenience for plot progression. There are super-assassins and there are henchmen, John has to battle all of them with few exceptions. In the realm of villains there are pure-villain pieces of shit like nightclub owning Killa, or the sympathetic but duty-bound (or financially motivated) badasses that you like while still pulling for John to emerge victorious.
The John Wick movies are all about fight scenes which are amazingly choreographed and never get boring. Even when they the laws of physics are clearly broken or one combatant is flailing in the background while John deals with another guy only to come back to fighting stance just in time for John to beat him up again, they manage to maintain a sense of high stakes and excitement and it always feels fun first. The rest of the universe moves to amplify the coolness of battle sequences. Cars on the street, dancers in clubs, lighting features in museums, water whenever the movie decides it would be cool to have some water falling, they all move to serve the greater purpose which is meticulously detailed, over-the-top, perfectly executed combat choreography. The world is dense with people, and they’re all NPCs until they’re ready to fight. Bystanders don’t act like people would with people engaging in mortal kombat all around them, they act like nothing’s happening until the fight is over and they leave the club at a medium-brisk pace.
Every environment in what resembles our world is dramatically lit in an extreme version of whatever that place’s earth counterpart would be… every main character looks like a comic book character, pause the movie at any point and it looks like you trained Midjourney on a graphic novel and requested a photorealistic render of a panel. Osaka looks like infinite-neon cyberpunk Osaka, and of course it’s full of assassins. The Ruska Roma syndicate operates out of a Catholic Church in Berlin has way more candles and dramatic paraphernalia than already would adorn a normal Catholic Church. Paris is full of fog machines and incandescent lighting
Regardless of location, it’s all assassins. Homeless guys are assassins. Auto-mechanics? Assassins. Pedestrians? About 60% assassin. Frenchman with a baguette? Probably assassin. Dog? Very good boy and assassin. Everyone listens to old fashioned looking radios where DJs broadcast to the world about murder assignments. There is a fleet of Assassins Guild Worldwide call-center girls dressed like it’s the 1950s but they’re covered in tattoos and using green text CRTs to put out ever-increasing bounties via command-line. People switch languages mid-conversation to show off how smart and cultured they are and subtitles appear on screen in an extremely corny action-movie font.
It’s all very dumb, but if you watched the first few movies you know that and don’t care. And nobody should, because it’s all part of the kinda dorky action aesthetic.
The overall impact of this style is mixed, in other parts of the series I’ve had to roll my eyes a bit and wondered “Wait, I’m loving this, but is this movie actually good?” It can take me out of my temporary suspension of disbelieve to see just how ridiculous what’s on the screen is at times. When you first see a new character sometimes my first reaction is “What the fuck is this guy?” Once I reframe it to comic-book or videogame sensibilities in my mind I am able to get back to enjoying the flick.
Stylistically goofy decisions aside, John Wick accomplishes exactly what it’s supposed to: it’s action packed and entertaining, funny at times, violent while only occasionally entering gross-out territory, and it manages to keep the viewer engaged throughout the entirety of the film
I loved it, all 169 minutes of it, and I’ll probably watch it again soon.
I appreciate your review but couldn’t disagree more. At a certain point it was just noise and movement with no sense of risk or stakes. There were very few scenes that the choreography was actually unique and engaging, the rest just felt like judo throw, shoot or stab, repeat ad nauseum. The movie peaked with the Osaka scene and was downhill from that point forward. A shorter run time would have done the movie wonders as I wouldn’t have been bored by the time we got to the third act. The stair scene (x2) in the third act guaranteed I won’t be watching any future additions to the movie in theaters. But hey to each their own, lots of people enjoyed it enough to where another one being produced is very likely.
Fair enough! The stair scene was the one time where I actually laughed out loud and stopped enjoying the combat. But then whatever points I had detracted because it was dumb I gave back because I laughed. Honestly if I just had to rate the end of the movie it wouldn’t be a total winner.
I have to agree. Admittedly, I watch it because husband likes the series, but I had seen the previous movies as well.
I was so bored like 30 minutes in, and it just kept getting worse. I appreciate what goes into filming those fight scenes but it just became so monotonous, and ridiculously over the top.
As much as I love reeves, I couldn’t take anymore single grunt responses from him either.
The Osaka sequence overstayed its welcome, more so when it’s meant to be an establishing introduction for its characters but not all of them get seen after the sequence ends.
The long panning shots, the stunts, the combat choreography, a lot of that is pretty cool, but visual eye candy is not the only thing that makes a movie and the film falls a bit flat as a result.
Probably not the intended audience for it.
Totally agree. As I said, I had seen at the previous movies, and before we put 4 on, we discussed me having no idea what was going on. I have completely forgotten any plot beyond someone killed his dog, and broke his sweet car, so he went on a killing spree. We agreed that there isn’t much of a plot, beyond that, and I’d be fine keeping up. Yeah…I wasn’t lost at all.
The only plot I could gather from the movie is Kill John Wick. Otherwise, the fight scenes were great.
For me the important part is the choreography, you mentioned in the end. Well-choreographed and directed fights are rare in movies these days. For me, Hongkong cinema, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee were the peak of that trend and very few movies came even close after that. This is why I like John Wick 4 so much, because of the awesome choreographed and directed fight scenes that actually bring something new to the table.
The idea of “gun fu/gun kata” is not new but the way John Wick 4 implemented it, just brings it to the next level.
There haven’t been any action movies pulling it off as well that I’m aware of for a long time. Most movies are very cut-heavy, because it’s easier to direct a fight scene if you’re close up and cutting to a different angle on every contact. The way they do it in John Wick is so satisfying and technically impressive, hopefully it catches on.
I’m moving that section to the top because it’s important and really should be the first thing I mention.
