“Gives You The Thrills & Then Some” John Wick 4 review

John Wick 4 delivers the goods for its most adherent fans, but you can’t help but wonder, like many of the characters involved: when will this ever end?

The fourth, and possibly final entry in the John Wick franchise sees John (Keanu Reeves) attempting to gain his freedom from the High Table as they assign the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) to wage a campaign against him and his allies. In turn, the Marquis hires blind assassin Caine (Donnie Yen) and the tracker Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson) to make sure John is eliminated for good, eventually culminating in a final showdown in Paris.

RIP Lance Reddick

Before we get too far, I just want to acknowledge the passing of actor Lance Reddick, who played Charon the New York Continental’s concierge and ally to John Wick. Though his scenes were small (he did have way more to do in the third entry), his impact was immeasurable to the overall feeling of John Wick, being one of our first entry points to how this criminal underworld works, setting the tone. His work in this series and beyond is deeply appreciated and he will be dearly missed.

The Story Is A Mess

Hate to go from a tribute right into a criticism, but if this is truly the final entry in the series…then it bears mentioning that a lot of the emotional depth that was there in the first two entries, has been lacking in these final two entries. And much of that has to do with the stakes and convictions of our lead character.

Think back to the first John Wick: as much as we joke about the dog, we know it was about more than that. It was centrally about his future with his wife being cut short and his grieving being interrupted by the same dark world he had escaped. Those motivations aren’t exactly universal, but there were elements that were relatable. As equally important, all the characters in the first film warned him that getting back in for revenge, however justified, was dangerous.

The sequel delivers those consequences as an ambitious crime family head Santino (Riccardo Scamarcio) calls in a favor and refuses to let John rest until he delivers. As John attempts to fulfill his pledge, he’s inevitably double-crossed and this leads to the conclusion where John kills Santino, but in doing so, violates the “no conducting business on Continental grounds” rule. To be fair, Santino was using this to his advantage, almost like a kid cheating at a playground game. But rules are rules, and this leads to the narrative going off the rails.

What’s clear is that John’s actions are now opening him up to everyone in the underworld. What’s no longer clear after the third entry is what the conclusion should be. That’s why the stakes in the first two made sense: John has nothing to live for and wants revenge and as a result, he is now paying consequences for coming back. The third film failed to establish what John should be doing now, all the while introducing more and more layers that fail to give us any reason to keep rooting for him.

Now, the fourth attempts to do that, but it’s still being held back by poor decisions in the third movie and setups that won’t be paid off. For example, the ending of the third seemed like John was getting ready to wage war against the High Table…but that idea is mostly abandoned and the answer / solution isn’t satisfying. It’s a reset to the status quo, which we just spent a whole third movie debating the pros and cons of, with several of John’s allies agreeing that they were done with the High Table.

Pacing Issues

Obviously, this franchise is predicated on the action scenes (we’ll talk about how they deliver on those promises) and in some ways has always been goofy. Characters walk around with bulletproof designer suits, have committed full out carnage with no authorities in sight, and survive falls that would make the Fast and Furious family envious.

Where Wick has excelled and triumphed over the Furious franchise is in the balancing act of camp and serious elements. Wick will never tread towards tanks (I mean maybe…James Bond did it) or going into space despite the funnier moments they can have with different characters, there’s still an attempt at realism. However, as the run time treads longer, these sillier moments become more apparent and may wear out even the most dedicated fan.

To that end, the first act is quite a slog; I kept looking at my watch and I couldn’t believe that we had been in the same sequence in Japan for seemingly 20 minutes or more. It was the first time that I found one of the Wick action sequences, despite how well choreographed and orchestrated to have diminishing returns.

The film’s middle portion avoids this issue, but it rears it’s ugly head again when we get towards the end and I found myself just ready for the movie to end. There’s a sequence on the stairs leading to John’s final bout that made me grind my teeth from tedium and repetition. And if I may borrow a thought from the video game world, it felt like I was watching a character grind for experience points.

For the uninitiated, grinding is typically a strategy you may need to employ with gaming in order to progress to the next level. So, you keep fighting similar enemies over and over again, until you either get better at the encounter to progress or have gained enough experience points to dispatch them easily.

This issue plagues the action set pieces in Japan and final fights towards the end, it’s just wave after wave of enemy. At some point, regardless of how nice it was to look at, I just lost any appreciation for what I was watching. How many times are we going to watch John execute the same maneuvers over and over again before it loses its appeal? For hardcore fans of the series, they are probably going to eat this up, but for the longest runtime in the series (it’s 11 minutes shy of 3 hours), it has a lot of repetitive action bloat.

Elevating Action Cinematography

And yet…as I say that…holy mackerel cinematographer Dan Lausten needs to be praised for his work on this series, especially on this installment. There’s great moments where John is bathed in red light on a Osaka subway to him emerging from smoke or jostling with an enemy in a nightclub as sprinklers shower the room with water. When the shot selections and choreography came together well, it was truly breathtaking and worthwhile.

Don’t roll your eyes as I make another video game reference, but there’s a sequence near the end that is truly inspired by top-down views (where the camera or view is above your characters, not behind or in-front) and while I thought it was initially going to be a terrible choice, it ended up being my favorite sequence of the movie. If you’re unfamiliar with this viewpoint, imagine you took the top off of a dollhouse, it might look a little like this:

With that view point, while you couldn’t see your character’s expressions, you would know before your protagonist does when trouble is coming and that builds tension, which Lautsen is able to do effectively in this sequence. It will likely be the most talked about moment coming out of this film and deservedly so.

Conclusion

Without spoiling anything, it’s unclear whether this is the final entry in the series given everything that takes place. There’s plenty setup to continue this story or leave it be, but that’s not why fans clamor to this series, at least not since the second entry. Despite the bloat, they will be content with the action sequences and new innovations, even if the narrative bones and immersive criminal underworld have become second fiddle.

Score: 7 out of 10

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