JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 |
★★★★★
22 March 2023
A movie review of JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4.
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Director: Chad Stahelski (the JOHN WICK trilogy).
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Natalie Tena, Clancy Brown, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne.
“How you do anything is how you do everything,” Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård)
Surely a contender for the greatest action movie of all time? See this at the best screen you can. It’s almost three hours long. I would happily watch six hours, 12 hours. The carnage choreography is mind-blowing. The sheer excitement and edge-of-your-seat thrills. The stunts, the combat reach high art. If you can swallow the violence, you are in for a delirious, gleeful movie experience. The nunchuck rumpus must be now one of my favourite movie brawls.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Natalie Tena, Clancy Brown, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne.
“How you do anything is how you do everything,” Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård)
Surely a contender for the greatest action movie of all time? See this at the best screen you can. It’s almost three hours long. I would happily watch six hours, 12 hours. The carnage choreography is mind-blowing. The sheer excitement and edge-of-your-seat thrills. The stunts, the combat reach high art. If you can swallow the violence, you are in for a delirious, gleeful movie experience. The nunchuck rumpus must be now one of my favourite movie brawls.
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What brain-rattling sound design! I was fortunate to attend an IMAX showing. Not just the size of the screen, but the wallops of weapons and fists and landings and vehicles seem to vibrate the auditorium. The opening of John Wick (Keanu Reeves) punching a post goes right through you. (It reminds of the WALK THE LINE [2005] prison beginning.) The gun shots, the impact of a nunchuk are like a sonic boom.
No need for a John Wick training montage. He is already honed. From the pummelled post, to a LAWRENCE OF ARABIA [1962] matchstick-being-blown-out gag. The series avoids movie references, so this is even more of a doozy. Par for course with this franchise, there are so many stand out scenes. I cannot wait to re-watch.
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Do not make the mistake of thinking this property repeats itself. The plot structures evolve. If one wanted to summarise each instalment in a single word:
Chapter 1: Revenge,
Chapter 2: Trapped,
Chapter 3: Evasion, and
Chapter 4: Freedom.
(PARABELLUM/3 reminds of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD [2015].)
Each film ups the peril. Not just the death of allies, but a beloved building becomes part of the collateral damage. Everyone that touches John Wick pays a price. He could be blamed, but it is the toll exacted by the parallel world he and his colleagues participate. The universe is rich with detail, rules, and terminology. Quickly we are introduced to a new player, the Harbinger (Clancy Brown). The franchise’s peak villain is then unleashed. Bill Skarsgård is even scarier than his performance in IT [2017].
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What can we learn from the character of John Wick? He is perhaps a benchmark for overcoming overwhelming odds. He’s a freight train of determination. But are his pursuits nihilism? Is John Wick suicidally despondent, or is he striving to put right all his wrongs before he is put in the ground?
CHAPTER 4 is globetrotting. Paris is a picturesque addition. This is not AMELIE [2000] though. While stopping over in Germany, it took a bit of time to work out martial arts star Scott Adkins was under the make-up. I thought Colin Farrell was the current apotheosis of enjoyable unrecognizability (in the otherwise lacklustre THE BATMAN [2022]). Adkins out-satisfies Farrell. The fight in a Berlin nightclub takes crunching to a new level.
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Camerawork, costumes, make up - those scars, those tattoos, battle orchestration, editing – the audience can take in the geography of a scene, direction, etc. are top-notch. As usual the lighting is sublime. The production design’s beauty is a striking backdrop to the havoc. The performances and dialogue deliver plenty of smiles. Donnie Yen, as in ROGUE ONE [2016], generously offers his brand of dignity and class. Keanu Reeves never makes his character appear to relish taking a life, but now he looks like the shackles are off his psyche. His bile flows. Then the blood of his adversaries. For all John Wick’s killing, surely there is less killing because of him, as the world’s assassins are dispatched?
One wondered whether the High Table would be directly taken on, but something more interesting happens, more believable (if that’s a concept that can be applied to these movies), more satisfying.
CHAPTER 4 feels to be an exclamation point to the series. A fitting finale. I hope they quit while they’re ahead. How do you even top this?!
