John Wick: Chapter 4

Before I started writing this, I looked at my review of John Wick 3, and I said that while I enjoyed 3 as much as 1 and 2, I needed to see more growth or the law of diminishing returns might hit. Given that JW4 is a full star lower than 3, you can tell what happened. Look. It’s not a BAD movie. All the fighting, stunt work, cinematography, color and lighting, all of it is just as good as ever. But we’re at the fourth movie now. John’s character has not fundamentally changed at all. The action set pieces aren’t unique. Nothing about the series has really changed. It was refined as far as it could be, and now it’s just more of the same. And at THREE HOURS LONG, that’s a lot of the same thing in and of itself. As the fourth movie, it’s exhausting. Compounding the issue is the full Flanderization of the title character. He is no longer a man against an army. That first movie, and even the second, he showed weakness. He sustained injuries. The third started to ramp up the Super John schtick, but not entirely. Here, it’s complete. John Wick is invincible. He is not bothered by ANY injury at all, until the very end (we’ll get to that). He falls off a balcony, falls fifteen feet and lands back first on a large post, falls another fifteen feet … gets up and brushes it off. He jumps out a third story window, grazes the roof of a minivan, falls onto the pavement … not even his suit his scratched. I know he’s the titular character, so plot armor is gonna be a thing, but he’s no longer insulated; he’s unstoppable. He’s a slasher movie killer. Literally nothing phases him … until the final sequence, where he gets tired because stairs. And then, the final fight, which I won’t spoil, but let’s just say the pain he endures there is nothing compared to other movies, and yet here, it’s serious. There’s no consistency to his vulnerability. But then again, one kick sent him rolling down 200+ stairs, so when the movie is giving the finger to the laws of physics, I guess it’s okay? No, no it’s not. And on top of THAT, the movie dumps a whole bunch of new lore about this world where it seems like every human on earth is an assassin. There’s now a way John can get out without having to kill the High Table, and it’s so moronically simple, you wonder why it wasn’t mentioned before. All new characters of great importance are introduced here. THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR WORLD-BUILDING. Considering this movie is all about him finally getting out, this should be pulling all the remaining strings together and tying them off, not adding new ones and complicating the lore even further. I know they’re doing a spinoff and they’ll probably do a part 5, but if you’re going to present this as the movie where his war against the High Table is finally concluded (and it is), STOP SEEDING OTHER STORIES. And that three hour run time? Over-indulgence at its worst. The Mr. Nobody storyline is so unnecessary, it would take fifteen minutes and the liberal use of the global-replace function in Word to make it disappear. There is more padding in this movie than the floor of an Olympic gymnasium. If I sound like I’m more down on this movie than up, it’s only because after three excellent movies, I had high expectations and this let me down. It’s not bad. It’s still got all the crisp, well-shot JW action you’re used to. If you liked the other three, you’ll like this. But for me, this is the one where the formula finally stopped being enough. I wanted more from this movie, while simultaneously less OF the movie, and it gave me the opposite of both.