John Wick: Chapter 4 | movie review
Please let this be the last chapter.
Movie summary: John Wick uncovers a path to defeating The High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes. (IMDb)
I can't help but compare the John Wick series to the Assassin's Creed game, with both franchises featuring a secret world with its own rules and many, many participants continuing to wage increasingly public war with each other while the rest of the world goes about its business. It's saying something that the essentially science-fiction games feel more grounded than than these movies.
In fact, the John Wick movies effectively left reality far behind with the second film, doubling down with the third and then giving up the last remaining pretension of being connected to any kind of world we live in with Chapter 4. Bullet-proof clothing and apparently inhuman pain thresholds are taken to frankly idiotic extremes here, with this being little more than a superhero movie with how much punishment gets dished out and still leaving people standing.
Even the action got boring to me very early on, and this movie does feel more like a show-reel for an action director/stunt choreography team than anything else. The 'story' is barely worthy of the term and exists solely to get from one over-long action sequence to the next, making the non-action scenes almost as difficult to endure as the more violent parts.
Going back to games, it's funny to think that the most enjoyable and visually appealing action sequence in the whole of Chapter 4 was inspired by a game (The Hong Kong Massacre) - it helps that it doesn't outstay its welcome either, unlike the other action sequences. I'm fairly sure you could at least halve each action sequence and lose nothing of value whatsoever, while also saving the audience's time.
This movie is really for action aficionados and/or those who just want to see how it all ends (and please let this be the end!) and that's about it. Seriously, go back and watch the first movie after this and see just how ludicrous the series got in such a short space of time, and just how different that first movie and its world feels in comparison to Chapter 4.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is an over-long and unsatisfying ending(?) to this increasingly ridiculous story. Yes, the action is choreographed well and I can respect the effort that went into making the numerous action scenes, but they go on for so long that they quickly become tedious after a few minutes and made me wish they'd just end - although the story's so thin (again) that I don't think that would've helped all that much.
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