Rated R for John Wick violence. It's what you are signing off on and it's what you are going to get. There's always going to be a slight gross out violence scene, which is more tame than you think it is going to be. If you have a problem with someone branding themselves, that might be a button. Also, a guy intentionally freeing himself from a knife the gross way, that's a thing. Add to that some language and you have yet another John Wick movie.
DIRECTOR: Chad Stahelski I think it was IGN that called John Wick: Chapter 4 the "best action movie of all time." I'm not sure if that means "The best movie in the action genre" or "the movie with the best action." If it's the latter, I suppose I can give it a pass for hyperbole. But if it is the former, then we have something to discuss. I think it was that review that got me to return to the John Wick franchise after disliking the first entry in the series. And I thank that review because I really enjoyed Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Heck, I even mostly really liked Chapter 4. But "the best action movie"? I don't know about that. I'm not even sure that Chapter 4 is a good movie beyond my enjoyment of it. It's not Chad Stahelski's fault that IGN came out with that review. (I'm pretty sure it was IGN. I don't want to disparage them without provokation.) In terms of finishing a franchise, Chapter 4 does that. The problem I have is that it is incredibly hamfisted. Most of my beef comes from a couple of issues: breaking promises and lying in the third act. As much as I enjoy the John Wick sequels, I have always accused these movies on nerfing their promises. I remember being mad when Chapter 3 nerfed their promise that "everyone is an assassin." Like, we still got an amazing amount of fight sequences. But "John Wick v. the World" wasn't the premise of Chapter 3. The same is true with Chapter 4. Chapter 3 ended with Winston betraying John Wick. Winston thought that John was dead. He wasn't. Winston did the one thing that he was never allowed to do and live. But because the movie really liked the relationship between John and Winston, we're not going to talk about that ending. I wanted to see the movie of "John Wick: The Hunter". Instead, I just got another John Wick movie. Like, I don't know why people are losing their minds. Chapter 4 kind of just feels like more of the same. More of the same isn't the worst thing. But I don't see what makes Chapter 4 special outside of a third act, which kills off the eponymous character. I want to vent my frustration about the final act. When Winston reveals that John Wick is able to challenge the Maquis to a duel, I thought, "How incredibly anticlimactic." John Wick is about gun-fu and choreography. It's about seeing how much punishment that a character can take (even to the point of absolute absurdity). And to Stahelski's credit, he does give a heavy dose of fun gun-fu with silly punishment. But a duel? Okay, let's talk about how Chad Stahelski nerfed his entire movie while lying to the audience. The duel is a mistake. The movie really wanted to put John Wick in the ground. It wanted to be the final movie in the franchise without an easy way to get back. It's smart. But the franchise didn't need a dead John Wick to close up the franchise. If anything, that pulls away from the point of all these movies. John has been hunted from the end of Chapter 2. His goal is to survive the unsurvivable. If he doesn't, he has to burn the world down with it. I hope you see where I'm going with this. He dies, free. But that wasn't the point. It's this weird consolation prize for what was fundamentally unwanted. Okay, then that brings me to a potentially great ending. There's this idea that John abandons the need to beat the system in exchange for a moment of humanity. After all, Caine (A BLIND MAN'S NAME IS "CAINE"!) is introduced with this tragic reflection of John. Caine is free and cares only for his daughter. Cool. So when the Maquis comes after his daughter and forces Caine back into a life he left behind, of course John sees that as a reflection of his own lost innocence. The big reveal is that John needs to get the Maquis to free Caine from his commitment before killing him. That means that all of the bullets that John takes are there as decoys to get the Maquis up close. That's a novel idea. But then there's one moment that spoils that. There's this epic scene where the two have to ascend the steps up to the Sacre Coeur and these two enemies put aside their differences for the sake of honor. It's great. But at the end of that scene, Caine stabs John in the hand. He's honorable, but not that honorable. It gets a laugh. It's there for the sake of a laugh and it kind of gets it. But that moment, that one moment, absolutely screws up the intention for the end of the movie. See, if John and Caine are ascending the stairs to the Sacre Coeur with the intention of John potentially sacrificing his life for Caine's daughter, then that stab doesn't make a lick of sense. After all, John has to survive long enough for the Maquis to give up the hold over Caine. John, also, has to be able to fire the dueling pistols so accurately as not to kill Caine outright. If Caine dies, so does his daughter. So the stab in the hand recontextualizes that last scene as something that John was just doing because Caine was unaware of this plan to save his daughter. That's a risky move. Now, you could argue that John is doing the right thing, not caring for his own life and instead just caring for Caine's daughter without Caine's knowledge. That would make him noble. But John's also buried the hatchet with Winston (for some reason). If John died, so would Winston. He's just trading one life for another. The only way to get that proper ending with the Maquis is if Caine is involved in a form of deception, which doesn't make sense with the stabbing joke. What this ultimately means, unfortunately, is that the story doesn't make a lot of sense. John's initial plan, a plan that basically the audience shared, was to hunt down every member of the table. It aligns with the mission he set out to do from one. He was told that he couldn't put the genie back in the bottle after he broke the rules of The Continental. So he was going to go after everyone who would come after him. That's the promise. Why wasn't the notion of a duel brought up earlier than this film? It seems like this deus ex machina that just could close the story. Listen, we kind of have a Chekhov's Gun here. So much about The Table was mentioned that we only get brief glances behind the camera. I'm going to make a comparison to Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. We're told about the evil exes and, one-by-one, we meet them. They all have different fighting styles and give us a glimpse into a wider world of Ramona Flowers. But John Wick just gave us a taste with the Elder in the desert. It had so much personality, but we'll never see what the other seats looked like? That's such a lost opportunity. It's just a better story. On top of that, you are allowed to kill John Wick that way. Imagine, John Wick ripping his way through 12 different kingdoms, Kill Bill style. He's tired and bloody. He's barely functional and then he takes out the head of the Table? That's a movie. Because the movie returns to the notion of revenge for pulling him back into this life, John Wick will achieve his goal. He will maintain the mystery of the man who brought down an evil organization. People would wonder whether he's dead. The notion of the Baba Yaga will be a cautionary tale for anyone trying to make their own table. I know that the movie said that the Table is like the hydra, but the Baba Yaga legend would keep them in line. That's a story. A duel with a villain that we hadn't met before who isn't all that formidable outside of having resources? That's way less interesting. I want the entire world to crumble into flames as Wick stumbles his way out back to his husk of a home. He sits in what remains of his chair. He talks to his wife. He fades away, knowing that he really stuck it to them. That's the movie! There's one thing that always bugged me since Chapter 2, the price on John Wick's head. Since The Continental put out the bounty on John Wick, it's implying that every assassin would come out of the woodwork to hunt down John Wick. Okay, that's cool. But every so often, we get a sequence that is trying to recapture that moment of awe. It's the moment where these receptionists receive word that the bounty has been increased. And I know that $20 million is a lot of money. But when you are in the millions already, you have to raise it by a lot more than what we're getting in these movies. I want the millions to go to hundreds of millions or billions. The world of The Table seems like it has infinite resources. The fact that Winston can simply demand the rebuilding of The Continental as his role as being a second and that's not even questioned implies that so much money is being thrown around that people shouldn't be scoffing at price hikes. Also, if everyone's out there already going after John Wick, what does the price change really do narratively? It's an empty moment. It's not like I didn't enjoy the movie, but there are just all these moments staring me in the face, kind of annoying me. It's when you see the potential of a scene and how those moments fall apart. I hate being underwhelmed when it comes to story. John Wick has always had the choreography exactly what it needs to be, but the narrative always seems a little watered down. It's odd, because the folks behind these movies have built this excellent playground and never really live up to their promises. I need Winston to get his due for the actions of Chapter 3. I need John Wick to survive the duel or to burn the world down with it. But the ending I got just went blah for me. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
February 2025
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