John Wick: Chapter 4 — Review Thread

John Wick: Chapter 4(3/23/2023)

Warning: Review contains spoilers

Not since The Fast and the Furious has an action franchise that started so modestly blown up into something as outlandish as what the John Wick movies have become. It feels like ages ago now but that first John Wick was supposed to be this quick little low budget Keanu Reeves vehicle that would come and go in the October of 2014, and for a while that seemed like all it was. It opened at number two behind the movie Ouija and made less than $50 million dollars at the domestic violence during its release, which was enough of a win to spawn a sequel but certainly didn’t set Hollywood on fire. But the movie really blew up on home video and by the time the sequels came the audiences showed up and in pretty large numbers. And as the series popularity grew the ambitions of the creative team grew as well and the movies grew increasingly large and bombastic and operatic in nature, bringing John Wick to increasingly exotic locales and engaging in more and more over the top shootouts. And this exponentially increasingly scale seems to have reached its zenith with the fourth and by some accounts final film in the series, John Wick: Chapter IV, which reportedly cost $100 million to make and runs nearly three hours.

This fourth film picks up a few months after the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 with Wick (Keanu Reeves) now trying to bring the war to The High Table, murdering The Elder (George Georgiou) and then going into hiding. With it revealed that Wick is alive and that the attempt on his life in the last movie failed, The High Table sends an official called The Harbinger (Clancy Brown) along with a high ranking and aristocratic High Table member called the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) to punish The New York Continental for their failure to reign in Wick. They execute The Concierge (Lance Reddick) on the spot and excommunicate The Manager (Ian McShane), seemingly allowing him to live to stricken him with humiliation and dishonor. From there they begin trying to track down Wick and assemble various assassins to do this including a guy named Chidi (Marko Zaror), a guy with a trained attack dog called Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), and most notably and old friend of Wick’s named Caine (Donnie Yen) a blind but high achieving killer who only reluctantly joins the hunt because The High Table is threatening his daughter. These people all eventually converge on the Osaka Continental where a manager Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada) has been harboring Wick much to the chagrin of his daughter (Rina Sawayama) and this will eventually lead to (one of many) shootout that will lead to a globe-trotting hunt with the very roots of The High Table on the line.

I’ve had pretty mixed feelings about all the John Wick movies to date in that I think their action scenes are really doing everything I’ve wanted cinematic action movie to do. They’re these R-rated ballets of violence that feel like a sort of natural evolution of what John Woo was doing in the late 80s and early 90s, Keanu Reeves looks incredibly cool while doing them, and as the series has gone on the creative team has really made use of the higher budgets to make them look kind of immaculate. However, the world these movies inhabit is profoundly silly and their plots are ultimately a bunch of nonsense. I could sit here all day and find nitpicky reasons why “The High Table” and the weird gold coin based economy makes zero sense. Like, the sheer number of paid assassins in this would imply that there’s enough demand for such a profession that there must be exponentially more murder victims every year. And the films also seem to live in a world where there are seemingly no police whatsoever and where high body count shootouts can happen more or less right out in the open on city streets without it seeming to cause much of a stir at all with the global status quo. Hell, this latest installment even suggests that The High Table runs a The Warriors style radio station in Paris meant to keep the French assassin community informed about the location of various targets… that’s crazy right?

The thing is, you’re probably just not supposed to take these movies that literally. One could almost say that you’re supposed to look at them in almost expressionistic terms and I think that claim works better as the series has moved forward and the cinematography has become increasingly avant-garde and the sets have gotten even more over the top decadent in their depiction of this sort of super upscale locations (seriously, the number of nightclubs in these cities is pretty astonishing). It’s almost like a work of cyberpunk but with bullets replacing the computers and illuminati-like crime syndicates replacing the monolithic tech corporations. That having been said, even if looking at them in that generous light I still don’t exactly think all the character motivations really add up here and I don’t think I’m as willing to forgive that. Like, early on there’s this big shootout at the Osaka Continental which is a hell of a set-piece but it’s also basically only happening because Wick needlessly put the place in danger for no reason, and then much of the rest of the film hinges on some pretty inconsistent notions of High Table rules and norms that the series writers are more than likely making up as they go. For instance, much of the film’s second half is predicated on Wick being given the idea to conclude this conflict with the High Table by challenging The Marquis to a dual, which might have been a smart thing to have done two movies ago, and the rules about when they’re supposed to give him sanctuary to participate in this ritual and when they’re not don’t really compute.


But maybe I’m burying the lede here a bit, most people aren’t going to these movies to contemplate character motivations or find coherence in the world building, they’re going to watch Keanu Reeves look really cool while shooting a whole bunch of bad guys in the head, and this movie does mostly deliver on that front. Scene for scene the action scenes in John Wick: Chapter 3 might have been a little more a little more inventive but these ones are longer and more epic in scope. The new supporting cast is also mostly solid. Bill Skarsgård plays a pretty stock European aristocrat villain, but Shamier Anderson is pretty strong as one of the henchmen hunting Wick (even if his character is a bit loopy) and Donnie Yen is a real standout as a blind assassin who mostly isn’t hindered by his disability, which is something of an action movie trope but one that’s well done here. And while that three hour runtime is kind of nuts on paper I didn’t really mind the pacing too much, this is kind of one of those movies where the excessiveness is sort of the point and that extended running time is sort of part of the package. Those just looking for more action and entertainment from this will mostly be pleased. And in many ways I’m also quite impressed by what’s been accomplished here as well, but looking back on this movie and the franchise as a whole I just kind of feel like this whole enterprise falls short of true greatness. With a little more forethought and story ambition to go with the style this series could have really been one of the finest accomplishments in all of action cinema but I feel like the creative team just leaned too much into B-movie laziness a while back when setting up this universe in a way that even this rather accomplished “final” movie couldn’t really shake.
***1/2 out of Five

Loved this. My favourite of the series. Good luck to the Mission: Impossible team because the bar for action filmmaking this year is set ludicrously high.

donny's Avengement star Adkins was a highlight for sure, the two side characters were questionable additions, but the shotgun incendiary rounds scene was truly something I'd never seen before and got me sitting upright almost immediately with a grin on my face.

I thought it was the best of the sequels and maybe the best overall, and I do agree that the movies get bogged way down in the lore and weirdness of it, that opening scene had me rolling my eyes and laughing, but they never really had that kind of tone in mind for the rest of the movie - which might be a mistake.

The ending was handled meh and kinda rushed - but the action was pretty glorious on this one.

I'd give it a 7.5/10 - def wanted a post credit scene at the graveyard and a hand rocking up.

I mean action is def better in John wick but the stunts... Well that's Tom cruise's music. He def out stunts Keanu, hell reeves doesn't do any of his own stunts (fighting/action is a bit different) - I bet the main stunt he did was the drifting while shooting out the door at the arch de triumph.


But if we talking masks? No contest.

But gun/fight action? Yea wick wins in a landslide.

You’re off your meds.




I have been converted, sir.




The cast is indeed great.

Ana De Armas hasn’t been cast so that’s a good sign.

Way better than a fourth film in a series has any right to be. Loved it.

As much as I like the first three John Wick movies, I admit I thought I'd had them figured out: solid/fun action movies with inventive action choreography and simple stories, and I was perfectly fine with that. Well, lo and behold, along comes John Wick: Chapter 4, with a bit loftier ambitions that honestly kind of blew my expectations out of the water.

Not that I'd go so far as to call this one of the greatest action films ever made -- at least, not right now -- but it certainly aims for that and still comes within target range. Director Chad Stahelski is just upping the game here in every way, and he's more than able to follow through with that confidence. The action scenes in this film are even more impressively staged than in the past movies, from the choreography to the cinematography (that overhead sequence, anyone?), and not to mention that they get even crazier as a result. And yet, the movie still manages to walk a fine line between awesome and just ridiculous, instead existing in that sweet middle spot that makes everything feel that much more entertaining. But it's not just the action. The introduction of colorful new characters and further expansion of this universe's lore give the film extra flavor as well, and deepen what this one is going for. That's not even to mention the fact that John's journey as a character here feels the most personal it's been since the first film, and it underscores everything with a more emotional undercurrent that permeates through the whole film without ever overshadowing it.