John Wick: Chapter 4

The best action franchise ever, now it is clear. But the fourth entry is three hours long? Of course, every action scene lasts like thirty minutes, and there are plenty of them. I've never really seen anything like it, let alone in the cinema, and I don't think I ever will again, unless they make Chapter 5. Chad Stahelski uses everything he has taught himself and John Wick in previous episodes, putting new obstacles in his path and forcing him to find new solutions. But most important of all, the story that connects the horribly grotesque slaughter is not stupid. The opening reference to Lawrence of Arabia is more of a joke, but after a while we get to the "Leone-like" clockwork and a sense that although the bad guys will die by the hundreds again, it will end up in a one-on-one duel like in a western. John Wick works his way up to it in a Bond-like globetrotting way, and in the interesting company of assassins who, though at his throat, are so well written and motivated that you actually root for them too. The story also puts a lot of emphasis on different forms of friendship, and I like that. If this film is the end of Wick's journey, he couldn't have asked for a better ending. (09/04/2023)

Nearly ten years of Wick's revenge for his killed dog and destroyed car have flown by. The huge mythology revolving around the rules and the code of assassins slowly swells, but as glue for fantastic action scenes it is enough. As a result, Keanu Reeves will not be remembered as Neo, but as the "loving husband" of John Wick. The climactic sequences at the Arc de Triomphe and the Osaka Massacre will one day be in the textbooks. The scenes with my favourite nunchucks really put a smile on my face. Donnie Yen relishes Cain to the full, and Reddick's last scene in the film gives me chills. Awesome. (04/04/2023)

It's still mostly top-notch action, but the Wick theme is pretty much exhausted. The script, with dialogue written by Keanu Reeves, was probably about 2 A5 pages, I don’t think it was more than that, and when someone wasn't fighting someone, I was more likely to cover my ears. There is one brilliant action sequence (a bird's eye view of a shotgun rampage with fiery "Dragon Breath" ammunition), but that not enough to make the film memorable. The previous episode, which I thought was better, had a lot of jaw-dropping moments, like the knife fight, the action inferno with the dogs or the horse kicks, but the only thing that really stands out here is the short scene with the shotgun and then the kinetic sequence at the Arc de Triomphe. Otherwise, it's mostly about headshots, and there are so many of them and with such frequency that by the final lengthy scene on the "endless" stairs I was already numb and didn't care. Moreover, how am I supposed to worry about John Wick, when he survives with a mere shake stuff that would have killed even the T-1000 in Terminator 2? It wasn't joy, as in previous episodes, but rather fatigue towards the end. Please, no more episodes. (27/03/2023)

Chad Stahelski may have bitten off more than he can chew when he tries to build a world and mythology around John Wick, because he's not very good at it. But all those clumsy attempts at worldbuilding are forgivable when it comes to action. The fourth John Wick is crammed with great shootouts and fights that once again show Hollywood that the action genre is far from having the last word, and that when the right people get their hands on it, the result is breathtaking, and you don't even notice that it's three hours long. In terms of action, John Wick stands at the absolute cinematic pinnacle. It may handle the in-between scenes a lot worse, but nobody goes to the movies to see this franchise for that filler anyway. (22/03/2023)

The visuals are shamelessly lavish and the action sequences are impressive, but unfortunately, the film is very poor when it comes to acting and conversational scenes. At times I found it almost a little funny in terms of what the protagonist survives, and the indestructibility of the blind anti-hero was glaring – I just didn't really believe it. So I have a number of problems with this film, for example, I'm still not entirely comfortable with the fact that it pretends to be groundbreaking cinema when it's basically an action B-movie, and the world isn't built in a completely bulletproof way – I wonder, for example, how the hero apparently moves around the world more or less seamlessly when he manages to change so many destinations. But can I give it three stars when I gave the same rating to much worse action flicks from Netflix? No, I can’t. (29/03/2023)