John Wick: Chapter 4 – An Electrifying Sequel (Early Review)

It’s been nine years since Keanu Reeves completely rejuvenated his career by taking on the role of ex-assassin John Wick in the 2014 film of the same name. Despite its comically simplistic premise, John Wick became an instant sensation, spawning a fruitful franchise that continues to grow and push the limits of action filmmaking and stunt choreography. The highly anticipated fourth instalment of the franchise has finally arrived, and it’s undoubtedly the most impressive by a significant margin.

John Wick: Chapter 4 continues where its predecessor left off. With the price on Wick’s head increasing and no viable exit from the criminal underworld in sight, Wick irrationally decides to assassinate the elder chairman of the High Table. This backfires and sends the crime world ablaze, as the arrogant new leader of the High Table hires some of the world’s most powerful criminals to ensure that Wick and everyone close to him feels his wrath.

Meanwhile, John Wick: Chapter 4 immediately feels more epic than its predecessors, with a new style of cinematography that enhances the scope. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen takes the aesthetic sensibilities that he picked up from working with Guillermo del Toro, and applied them to shooting action sequences. The neon-tinged color palette and unique camera angels make the fight sequences feel more gritty and immersive. When the camera isn’t fixated on Wick kicking ass, Laustsen takes time to accentuate the beauty of the numerous cities the film takes place in, from Paris to New York City to Tokyo to Berlin.

The John Wick franchise has always been chock-full of brilliant action set-pieces, but director Chad Stahelski and the stunt team outdid themselves here. Stahelski uses the multiple locations as an opportunity to test out different styles of combat, from old school gun fights, to sword fights that pay homage to Japanese samurai films. The variation in combat styles allows for the action sequences to be more engaging and consistently surprising than ever before.

The film is perhaps 75-80% action, but its compelling story and character arcs fortunately never get lost in the shuffle. The film introduces a slew of fascinating characters, many of which are intriguing enough to lead their own films. With Marquis, Skarsgård continues to prove that he’s one of the best actors to play antagonists working today. He’s extremely menacing, arrogant, but intriguing enough to make audience love to hate him. Hiroyuki Sanada and British popstar Rina Sawayama are also standouts as Shimazu and Akira, John Wick’s ally’s and employees of the Osaka Continental Hotel in Tokyo.

However, the real standout is undoubtedly Yen. Yen portrays Caine, a blind high table assassin and old friend of John Wick who is ordered to take him down. Not only does Yen completely steal the show, Caine may be the most interesting character the franchise has ever seen, and this reviewer would love to see a spin-off revolving around him.

Ultimately, the biggest issue with John Wick: Chapter 4 is shockingly one of the strongest parts of the previous films in the franchise, John Wick himself. The world surrounding John Wick has become so vast and fascinating, that he almost becomes engulfed in it so much so that he is by far the least engaging character in the film. It doesn’t help that the entire cast acts circles around Reeves. While he has always had a magnetic charisma, he’s not a particularly good actor, and that’s never been made more clear here as he has always had trouble showing emotion in his films. In the previous John Wick films, Reeves’ mostly stoic performance has worked, as the emphasis was more on the action. While the action sequences in this film are just as if not more frequent than in its predecessors, Wick’s arc in Chapter 4 requires him to show some ounce of humanity, and unfortunately he fails that task miserably.

In the end, despite an embarrassing performance from its lead, John Wick: Chapter 4 is a brilliant piece of action filmmaking that cements the franchise as one of the best the genre has ever seen.

still courtesy of Lionsgate

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Tristan French