John Wick: Chapter 4: Does It Kick Ass?

The John Wick series, for me at least, has always been one of the most consistent action franchises.  I remember I saw the trailer for the first movie and it didn't really interest me.  I saw the second film back in 2017 with a friend and, ever since, I've loved these movies.  Since then, I've watched the entire series and each one just gets better and better.   The filmmakers have taken a simple premise, an assassin's puppy gets killed and he goes on a rampage, and have turned it into an epic franchise.  With every installment, the mythology and lore of this world is deepened.  In addition to that, the action gets better, too.  With Wick, I know I'm going to have a fun time.  Does Chapter 4 continue this tradition?  That's what I'm here to tell you.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is directed by Chad Stahelski and stars Keanu Reeves, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, Shamier Anderson, and Laurence Fishburne.  John Wick (Reeves) has a chance to defeat The High Table.  To do so, he'll have to face off against Marquis (Skarsgård), a formidable new opponent who has powerful alliances across the globe and turns some of Wick's old friends into foes.  With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

This movie rules, plain and simple.  While it may not be my favorite in the series (2019's Parabellum has that title) this is a kick ass, high energy movie with some of the best action I've ever seen.  Reeves, yet again, does a great job as Wick.   At this point in the saga, all he wants is to get out of this life and live peacefully, but the world has different plans for him.  I think what I love about Wick is that he does all of these crazy things, but just wants out.  It's pretty funny, in a twisted way.  Reeves gives such a stoic performance, but it works for this character because John isn't a talker.  When it comes to new characters, Donnie Yen plays Cain, an old friend of John's who's forced to hunt him down by Marquis (I won't explain why because it's kind of a spoiler).  Yet again, Yen is playing a blind badass (his character in Rogue One also can't see).  What's interesting about Cain is that he genuinely doesn't want to kill John, but he has to.  There's several points in the film where he just talks to him like he isn't trying to kill him and John does the same thing.  It's pretty funny.  Continuing with the new characters, Skarsgård did a good job as Marquis also.  Sometimes you just need a villain who's a jerk and nothing else.  Skarsgård pulled this off with flying colors.  Marquis is kind of a weasel who just has access to a lot of resources.  He wouldn't dare fight Wick by himself, but has no problem sending someone else after him.  This series has always had interesting lore with it and each film expands upon the previous.  It's fascinating to me that these assassins are just so casual.  In this movie, we learn more about The High Table, a council of crime lords that governs the powerful criminal organizations.  We learn more about their rules in this, even if some of them are kind of convenient.  Now, let's talk about the obvious thing: The action.  As one can expect, it's absolutely fantastic, probably the best in the series.  Every sequence I was thinking, they're not gonna top this, and then the movie proved me wrong, multiple times.  There were several scenes where I was losing my mind.  There's one part where most of the scene is filmed in one take but we're looking down on the action.  It was incredible and I'm dying to know how they did it.  I read somewhere that Keanu did 90% of his own stunts.  That's insane to me.  Wick goes through the wringer in this movie.  Going back to Caine, since he's blind, there are a lot of unique action scenes with him.  One that comes to mind is that he secretly sets up a bunch of motion sensors that go off when someone walks by and he just kicks their asses.  It was insane.  This whole movie is essentially an action sequence and I think that rocks.  The movie looks gorgeous, too.  Everything just has so much color and it makes the movie pop.

While I loved this movie, I did have a few problems with it.  I've said many times that I love long movies.  Chapter 4 is the longest in the series, clocking in at 2 hours and 49 minutes.  I do feel some of it could've been trimmed a bit.  I'm saying that it's bad, but there's only so many ways we can see Wick kill a guy (but he looks awesome doing it).  I was never bored with the movie at all, but a few things could've been shaved down to help the story move a little better.  When it comes to characters, I wish we got to see more of the Bowery King (Fishburne).  He doesn't have a ton to do here, but he's great when he shows up.  There's a new character named Tracker (Anderson) who's pretty cool, but I feel like some of his plot lines could've been trimmed.  The actor does a great job, don't get me wrong, I just feel that the character was sort of unnecessary.  His dog is adorable though.  This next one might be on me because I think they explain it in one of the previous movies, but John just kind of appears in places.  In the beginning of the movie, he's in New York and the next scene we see him in, he's in Morocco.  This is just me being extremely picky though and these are very minor gripes.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Lance Reddick somewhere in this interview.  He played Charon in this franchise and he sadly passed away a few days before the movie came out.  It was a gut wrenching loss because he was such a talented actor.  The filmmakers honored Lance by dedicating the movie to him.  He will be extremely missed.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is one helluva ride.  Keanu Reeves crushes it as Wick again, Donnie Yen is fantastic as Caine, the world-building and lore continues to be interesting, the action is phenomenal, and the movie looks gorgeous.  I feel like some things could've been trimmed down a little and some old characters could've done more, but other than that, this is an amazing movie.  If I were to rate it, I'd give John Wick: Chapter 4 a 9/10.  Also, be sure to stay through all of the credits as well!  There's a little something afterwards!