John Wick: Chapter 4
Year: 2023
Director: Chad Stahelski
Starring: Shamier Anderson, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves, Bill Skarsgard & Donnie Yen
Runtime: 169 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 29/03/23
Director: Chad Stahelski
Starring: Shamier Anderson, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves, Bill Skarsgard & Donnie Yen
Runtime: 169 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 29/03/23
The first three John Wick films have had an incredible run of luck in that where the original film was a low budget action flick that should have passed under the radar entirely, it didn’t because of its excellent fight sequences. The second film expanded on the world, but crucially didn’t take away from what people loved and just turned everything up to eleven, then the third film somehow managed to do the exact same thing again, by making the world deeper and the action even bigger. It’s reasonable to wonder how that can even be possible, and it’s kind of amazing that the team managed it, so excitement for the inevitable fourth film was at an all-time high. But it seems luck runs out for everyone eventually, because John Wick: Chapter 4 is officially the first underwhelming John Wick film.
Given sanctuary by the Bowery King (Lawrence Fishburne) following his battle with the forces of the High Table at the New York Continental Hotel, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has regained his strength and is angry. John knows this can only end one of two ways, either he dies, or he takes on the High Table. Tasked by the High Table of taking out John Wick and anyone associated with him, the Marquis Gramont (Bill Skarsgard) has started deconsecrating Continental Hotels, starting with New York. But together with former Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane) and the Ruska Roma crime syndicate, John may be able to wager his way out of the game for good.
Given sanctuary by the Bowery King (Lawrence Fishburne) following his battle with the forces of the High Table at the New York Continental Hotel, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has regained his strength and is angry. John knows this can only end one of two ways, either he dies, or he takes on the High Table. Tasked by the High Table of taking out John Wick and anyone associated with him, the Marquis Gramont (Bill Skarsgard) has started deconsecrating Continental Hotels, starting with New York. But together with former Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane) and the Ruska Roma crime syndicate, John may be able to wager his way out of the game for good.
Clocking in at an absurd two hours and fifty minutes, John Wick: Chapter 4 is the biggest John Wick film yet in almost every sense of the word. But bigger doesn’t automatically mean better, and unfortunately Chapter 4 loses sight of what made the first three films so enthralling by having this desire to be as big as it possibly can.
The story is a bloated mess that could have been over an hour shorter (or totally non-existent as I will shortly get to), a series of fetch quests for John given to him by a whole roster of new side characters that are introduced seemingly by the minute. Once he has done what one person asks, he goes to see another person, once he’s been their errand boy they pass him on to someone else, so on and so forth, rinse and repeat ad infinitum until as if out of nowhere we arrive at the end of the story. There are so many contrivances to allow for this story structure to take place, and all of them are newly introduced mechanics in the High Table’s structure, many of which make you question why this was not exploited earlier on in the series so John could retire just like he wanted to. The entire third act hinges around a duel, which provided John wins means that he will be able to demand to be exonerated from all of his wrongdoings against the High Table, retire from a life of professional crime, and be allowed to live in total peace…why was this not the solution to the problem he faced in Chapter 2? Santino D’Antonio was a member of the High Table come the final act of Chapter 2, so he carried with him enough authority for John’s request of a duel to be possible and he could have then killed Santino without the High Table bringing a literal army down on him for the next two films. It’s almost as if everyone forgot about it too because it gets brought up out of nowhere and suddenly everyone remembers about this convenient ‘get out of jail free’ card that will not only get rid of all of John’s problems but will act as the ultimate Deus ex machina and allow every single person who has helped John to be given literally whatever they want. It’s such bad writing that it’s laughable, and it’s made so incredibly complicated, the exact opposite of what John Wick laid its foundations upon which was plain and simple barebones storytelling that only served to provide context to awesome fight scenes.
The new characters take centre stage for most of the film too, despite having John Wick in the title get used to not seeing an awful lot of him. Most of the film concerns itself with Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind assassin contracted by the Marquis to kill John. Similar to John in Chapter 2, Caine is stuck between a rock and a hard place as he doesn’t want to kill John but if he does both he and his daughter will die. Yen’s performance is fine, but it’s very much a repeat of the character he played in Rogue One and I was over that before it even got going. It seems too outlandish for a blind assassin to be able to do what he does in this film, seemingly by using sound, despite the fact that all he’ll be able to hear is gunfire from every single damn direction. There’s a cool scene where he uses motion detecting doorbells to keep track of where attackers are and gun them down, but this only happens the once and the rest of the time he fights just like anyone else, seemingly able to tell where everyone is all of the time with no explanation as to how.
Then there’s Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson) who I expect we may see a lot more of in the expanded John Wick universe stuff because he’s got so much backstory that’s only ever alluded to, so much so that it becomes tiresome. He has an interesting conflict around whether to kill John or keep him alive ringing entirely around the bounty that’s collecting on John’s head. The longer he leaves him alive the more he’ll be able to claim, but the longer he keeps him alive the harder he’s going to be to kill. Anderson’s performance was pretty solid and I did enjoy his character, but he had almost as much screen time as John did and to me that felt wrong.
The Marquis gets a very hefty amount of screen time too, and it’s fair to say that he is the best villain in the series so far, but John Wick villains rarely have a motivation beyond wanting to kill John because he wants to kill them, and this time it’s a little different. Skarsgard is very good in the role, and I didn’t actually mind him having as much screentime as he did because he’s probably one of the most interesting characters in the franchise yet, and with Skarsgard’s great performance it was always a pleasure to get a scene with him.
The story is a bloated mess that could have been over an hour shorter (or totally non-existent as I will shortly get to), a series of fetch quests for John given to him by a whole roster of new side characters that are introduced seemingly by the minute. Once he has done what one person asks, he goes to see another person, once he’s been their errand boy they pass him on to someone else, so on and so forth, rinse and repeat ad infinitum until as if out of nowhere we arrive at the end of the story. There are so many contrivances to allow for this story structure to take place, and all of them are newly introduced mechanics in the High Table’s structure, many of which make you question why this was not exploited earlier on in the series so John could retire just like he wanted to. The entire third act hinges around a duel, which provided John wins means that he will be able to demand to be exonerated from all of his wrongdoings against the High Table, retire from a life of professional crime, and be allowed to live in total peace…why was this not the solution to the problem he faced in Chapter 2? Santino D’Antonio was a member of the High Table come the final act of Chapter 2, so he carried with him enough authority for John’s request of a duel to be possible and he could have then killed Santino without the High Table bringing a literal army down on him for the next two films. It’s almost as if everyone forgot about it too because it gets brought up out of nowhere and suddenly everyone remembers about this convenient ‘get out of jail free’ card that will not only get rid of all of John’s problems but will act as the ultimate Deus ex machina and allow every single person who has helped John to be given literally whatever they want. It’s such bad writing that it’s laughable, and it’s made so incredibly complicated, the exact opposite of what John Wick laid its foundations upon which was plain and simple barebones storytelling that only served to provide context to awesome fight scenes.
The new characters take centre stage for most of the film too, despite having John Wick in the title get used to not seeing an awful lot of him. Most of the film concerns itself with Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind assassin contracted by the Marquis to kill John. Similar to John in Chapter 2, Caine is stuck between a rock and a hard place as he doesn’t want to kill John but if he does both he and his daughter will die. Yen’s performance is fine, but it’s very much a repeat of the character he played in Rogue One and I was over that before it even got going. It seems too outlandish for a blind assassin to be able to do what he does in this film, seemingly by using sound, despite the fact that all he’ll be able to hear is gunfire from every single damn direction. There’s a cool scene where he uses motion detecting doorbells to keep track of where attackers are and gun them down, but this only happens the once and the rest of the time he fights just like anyone else, seemingly able to tell where everyone is all of the time with no explanation as to how.
Then there’s Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson) who I expect we may see a lot more of in the expanded John Wick universe stuff because he’s got so much backstory that’s only ever alluded to, so much so that it becomes tiresome. He has an interesting conflict around whether to kill John or keep him alive ringing entirely around the bounty that’s collecting on John’s head. The longer he leaves him alive the more he’ll be able to claim, but the longer he keeps him alive the harder he’s going to be to kill. Anderson’s performance was pretty solid and I did enjoy his character, but he had almost as much screen time as John did and to me that felt wrong.
The Marquis gets a very hefty amount of screen time too, and it’s fair to say that he is the best villain in the series so far, but John Wick villains rarely have a motivation beyond wanting to kill John because he wants to kill them, and this time it’s a little different. Skarsgard is very good in the role, and I didn’t actually mind him having as much screentime as he did because he’s probably one of the most interesting characters in the franchise yet, and with Skarsgard’s great performance it was always a pleasure to get a scene with him.
Combat is the lifeblood of the John Wick films and with Chapter 4 being so massive in scope, and considering Chapter 3 was almost entirely a single action sequence, I had such high hopes for this film. But they crashed and burned almost immediately and come the end of the film I was so disappointed with what was showcased.
There’s next to no action at all for the first half an hour whilst all the new characters and motivations are setup, then we get to Japan and the first big action set piece felt like a copy/paste of the Continental shootout in Chapter 3. The fact that it happens in another Continental Hotel just adds insult to injury, and it was the first major indicator that Chad Stahelski and co had literally run out of ideas. It wasn’t even as fun as the aforementioned fight in Chapter 3 because, as became a running trend throughout Chapter 4, the fight choreography is just sloppy here. John Wick films are beloved for their excellent fight choreography and beautiful cinematography for those sequences, Chapter 4 has neither, instead resorting to awkward close ups where you can’t see much of anything as per every other action movie ever.
Later on there is a fight in Berlin which is a combination of the club sequence in the first film, and the Colosseum sequence in Chapter 2, but again not as interesting or well executed as either.
The film builds to an extended action sequence in Paris which felt more akin to Chapter 3 in how the combat rarely ever stopped but the story continued to develop, and the characters kept moving. This featured Chapter 4’s highlight sequence, a bird’s eye tracking shot through an abandoned building as John uses incendiary shotgun shells against his attackers. It felt like an homage to The Raid, and the Hotline Miami videogames (hell, even the John Wick: Hex videogame). But this was bookended either side by a fight outside the Arc de Triumph which was horrendously green-screened to the point that it felt like it belonged in a Star Wars prequel film, and by a staircase fight on the way up to the Sacre-Coeur which can be boiled down to the film equivalent of a level of Donkey Kong.
Chapter 4 throws all the established combat laws from the previous three films out of the window to turn John into Superman, completely impervious to any damage unless the plot calls for it. Over the course of Chapter 3 he’s literally broken, barely able to fight at times because of how much of a beating he’s taking. But in Chapter 4 he’s repeatedly subjected to more damage than anyone he is fighting against, and yet he never seems to appear hurt. The staircase sequence exemplifies this as the moment people are thrown down those stairs they never get back up, either dead or knocked out, but John gets thrown down so many god damn times it stops being funny, and he just gets back up every single time like nothing’s happened. It makes no logical sense, and to be honest the combat often felt more akin to a Fast & Furious film than a John Wick movie.
Chapter 4 does look and sound good with some great environment shots and a thumping soundtrack, but as previously mentioned, the real meat and gravy of John Wick is the great looking combat sequences, and they are totally absent. It makes the film a total bore to watch, and it made the three hours quite literally crawl by because of how uninspired the camerawork was here.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is a below average action movie. The story is overlong, overcomplicated, and constructed entirely around contrivances and conveniences. The combat is uninspired and lacks the great fight choreography the series is known for. The performances of Skarsgard, McShane and Anderson are pretty decent, but everyone else is sub-par at best. I could not have possibly imagined the John Wick franchise falling apart as disastrously as this, where none of the components mesh together at all, and everything that the series did well was thrown out in favour of just being bigger than the previous film. If this is what the future of John Wick looks like, count me out.
There’s next to no action at all for the first half an hour whilst all the new characters and motivations are setup, then we get to Japan and the first big action set piece felt like a copy/paste of the Continental shootout in Chapter 3. The fact that it happens in another Continental Hotel just adds insult to injury, and it was the first major indicator that Chad Stahelski and co had literally run out of ideas. It wasn’t even as fun as the aforementioned fight in Chapter 3 because, as became a running trend throughout Chapter 4, the fight choreography is just sloppy here. John Wick films are beloved for their excellent fight choreography and beautiful cinematography for those sequences, Chapter 4 has neither, instead resorting to awkward close ups where you can’t see much of anything as per every other action movie ever.
Later on there is a fight in Berlin which is a combination of the club sequence in the first film, and the Colosseum sequence in Chapter 2, but again not as interesting or well executed as either.
The film builds to an extended action sequence in Paris which felt more akin to Chapter 3 in how the combat rarely ever stopped but the story continued to develop, and the characters kept moving. This featured Chapter 4’s highlight sequence, a bird’s eye tracking shot through an abandoned building as John uses incendiary shotgun shells against his attackers. It felt like an homage to The Raid, and the Hotline Miami videogames (hell, even the John Wick: Hex videogame). But this was bookended either side by a fight outside the Arc de Triumph which was horrendously green-screened to the point that it felt like it belonged in a Star Wars prequel film, and by a staircase fight on the way up to the Sacre-Coeur which can be boiled down to the film equivalent of a level of Donkey Kong.
Chapter 4 throws all the established combat laws from the previous three films out of the window to turn John into Superman, completely impervious to any damage unless the plot calls for it. Over the course of Chapter 3 he’s literally broken, barely able to fight at times because of how much of a beating he’s taking. But in Chapter 4 he’s repeatedly subjected to more damage than anyone he is fighting against, and yet he never seems to appear hurt. The staircase sequence exemplifies this as the moment people are thrown down those stairs they never get back up, either dead or knocked out, but John gets thrown down so many god damn times it stops being funny, and he just gets back up every single time like nothing’s happened. It makes no logical sense, and to be honest the combat often felt more akin to a Fast & Furious film than a John Wick movie.
Chapter 4 does look and sound good with some great environment shots and a thumping soundtrack, but as previously mentioned, the real meat and gravy of John Wick is the great looking combat sequences, and they are totally absent. It makes the film a total bore to watch, and it made the three hours quite literally crawl by because of how uninspired the camerawork was here.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is a below average action movie. The story is overlong, overcomplicated, and constructed entirely around contrivances and conveniences. The combat is uninspired and lacks the great fight choreography the series is known for. The performances of Skarsgard, McShane and Anderson are pretty decent, but everyone else is sub-par at best. I could not have possibly imagined the John Wick franchise falling apart as disastrously as this, where none of the components mesh together at all, and everything that the series did well was thrown out in favour of just being bigger than the previous film. If this is what the future of John Wick looks like, count me out.