It was in a (not so distant) 2014 when We got our first look at John Wick in action under various titles: Uncontrolled, John Wick: Another Day to Kill… After a surprising success, we had two sequels (John Wick: Chapter Two in 2017 and John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum in 2019), with which we arrive at what many sagan yearn: a quarter: John Wick 4 (just like that) and a world expanded in, for example, comics or series.
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) discovers a way to defeat the High Table. But in order to win his freedom, Wick must face a new rival with powerful alliances around the world, capable of turning old friends into enemies.
John Wick 4: Keanu Reeves more and more
John Wick movies they’ve always been over-the-top action adventures, more focused on dazzling you with well-choreographed action sequences than trying to tell stories. And John Wick 4 delivers on everything we expect of it: bullet-riddled revenge, action galore, blood and guns, lots of guns.
We pick up the story right where we left off in John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum, and this will make the big difference in this installment compared to the previous three. If until now it was a man (a contract killer) who simply wanted to be left alone, now things change because John seeks revenge.
This fact presupposes that the spectators remember perfectly what happened In the third part of John Wick, of course. We will see John running, fighting and slaughtering all over the world… And when the movie focuses on this (riotous action), everything works correctly. But inevitably, John (and the plot) must stop from time to time. And that is a drag.
When the film stops stepping on the accelerator, and tries to show us a relatively elaborate plot, That’s when we found out how long and repetitive John Wick 4 is. (almost three hours, by the way). And it is that the new additions to the saga (Rina Sawayama, Shamier Anderson or Hiroyuki Sanada) are not enough to distract us from the fact that almost everything we see in John Wick 4 we have already seen in previous installments.
Of course, at least these “stops” in the action serve to deepen or expand the world of John Wick and everything that surrounds him: the High Table, the Brotherhood of assassins, the Continental hotels around the world, their aldermen, their special concierges…
John Wick 4 is an all-you-can-eat buffet of gunshots, action, blood, and guns, lots of guns.
But it is normal in this saga: the most important thing in John Wick is the action, well above the plot, of course. But we miss a slightly more worked scripta well written story about action and violence.
Yes indeed, the action scenes are what we expect, profusely worked acrobatics and choreographies that are, within the violence they show, scenes with great plastic beauty, both for the way the movements are filmed, and the way the light is reflected. Even we’ll find some physical humor like John’s fall down a few hundred stairs or his fight with Killa, to give just two examples.
And, while, of course, a salad of shooting and stabbing from John Wick and his allies (friends or enemies of his enemies) while our John is indestructible (beyond his sleek black kevlar suit) and tireless: he falls from a great height and does not break his back, he is stabbed, run over, shot… and he always gets up… Of course, the murderers are “honorable” and always give him a little respite (because they disappear illogically just because they give him suits the script).
It’s not enough for us to feel like John Wick 4 is unnecessarily stretched, though. The truth is that (allow me the joke) John Wick 4 “goes like a shot.” It is not long at all (if you are a fan of the saga, of course) and although it could have stayed in a two-hour movie, the truth is that these almost three hours pass (almost) in a breath.
And it is that we are facing a video game in which we have the mission of ending the Greater Enemy and, meanwhile, in addition to eliminating an army of more or less well-trained assassins (some are pathetically clumsy to be professional assassins), we will have to accomplish some secondary missions to get certain “objects” that will allow us to reach the Final Boss.
That is how you have to take the John Wick movies as a game. The mistake would be in taking these movies seriously. Nobody, neither the directors, nor the scriptwriters nor Keanu Reeves himself take it seriously. And if they don’t, no one else should.
John Wick 4 is one more film in the saga, that’s all. If you liked the other three, you will like this one… and vice versa. The problem is that those responsible for this fourth installment have confused “more” with “better” and it is not.
John Wick 4 is directed by Chad Stahelski Scripted by Michael Finch and Shay Hatten, based on characters created by Derek Kolstad. This ported by Keanu ReevesRina Sawayama, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, Natalia Tena, Shamier Anderson, Marko Zaror, Scott Adkins, Lance Reddick, Hiroyuki Sanada.
John Wick 4 opens in theaters on March 24, 2023.
