John Wick: Chapter 4 Review: A Grandiose Action Epic Executed with Brutal Efficiency – The Film Stage
There’s a go-for-broke, frenzied aura upon John Wick: Chapter 4. Even for a franchise so closely steeped in bullets and physique rely, this outing finds a strategy to go away all its playing cards on the desk. Seemingly customary with a “no dangerous concepts” ethos, John Wick: Chapter 4 gleefully trades within the type of maximalist extra that characterised final 12 months’s Babylon. Similarly, not solely does Chapter 4 endeavor to be a doubtlessly closing John Wick film, it performs as an try on the final motion film ever made.
Following his unbelievable spill off the Continental rooftop on the shut of Chapter 3, Keanu Reeves’ Boogeyman has taken refuge from the Excessive Desk––the invisible hand that controls this neon-coated world––within the firm of the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne). Within the wake of retribution from the powers that be, the 2 personae non grata embark on a globetrotting massacre to demolish all of it from the highest down. Of their tracks is the lavish, scenery-chewing Marquis de Gramont performed by a wonderfully snaky Invoice Skarsgård. He’s a Excessive Desk inquisitor of types, given carte blanche to kill Wick and his cohorts by any means essential. This features a bounty taken up by some new faces: Donnie Yen’s blind murderer Caine (get it?), and a ragtag Tracker-with-no-name (Shamier Anderson).
The particulars of this are finest left un-prodded. This franchise has at all times had a penchant for shifting goalposts in the case of guidelines, issues finite and irrevocable till they’re not. There’s at all times a loophole looming within the fantastic print that conveniently will get ignored as a result of nobody dared to ask. For all of the chatter over the franchise’s world-building, it at all times appeared like extraordinarily elaborate window-dressing. Like numerous Invoice Skarsgård’s fabulous outfits, the principles of the bigger universe certainly fall into that distinction: the looks of sophistication to be loved or ignored. What’s paramount is the spectacle. Grandiosity in thoughts, the merry chase leads Wick and Co. from New York to Osaka to Berlin to Paris in a Gun Fu epic that’s hellbent in milking each body of its almost three-hour runtime for brutal effectivity.
The locales on show really feel appropriately ostentatious for the worldwide grandeur the franchise now swings for. Every thing exists as a correct unique backdrop versus a parking zone in whichever metropolis offers the perfect tax incentive. Put merely: cash’s on the display screen. That’s not simply when it comes to baroque accommodations, nightclubs, and clean-cut fits, however how director Chad Stahleski harmonizes each side of manufacturing. The star energy of his ensemble, the precision of his stunt crew, and the prowess of his post-production workforce make all of it transfer as one. The time spent in Osaka is especially masterful. A selected spotlight contains Donnie Yen shifting like a velociraptor by means of Fred Astaire by way of a kitchen and dispatching anybody who would possibly steal the bounty on Wick. He’s the Van Cleef to Keanu’s Eastwood, and in some respects the center and soul of Chapter 4.
On the entire, Stahleski makes ample room for each member of his cavalcade of carnage. In showcasing the supporting gamers––not simply Yen and Anderson, but in addition motion icon Hiroyuki Sanada and popstar Rina Sawayama, each brilliant spots––the director helps hold the gargantuan setpieces enjoying brisk as an alternative of bloated, a couple of exceptions however. Even Ian McShane and the late, nice Lance Reddick squeeze in a handful of beats which are among the movie’s most emotionally potent. Extra voracious motion viewers would possibly acknowledge the looks of DTV powerhouse Scott Adkins––a pioneer for the style in his personal proper and no-brainer addition to the forged––as Killa, a Penguin-esque Berlin Kingpin who stands in Wick’s path to the Excessive Desk. Sadly for motion die-hards, Adkins’ portion of the movie is the place it sags essentially the most, much more than the inexplicable fats go well with the movie has deigned to lure the motion star in. With indoor waterfalls on brutalist concrete and Schranz blasting throughout a leather-clad dancefloor, the Berlin set piece appears an aesthetic slam dunk within the John Wick universe, however its placement reeks of a online game facet quest a leaner script would nix fully. It’s not with out benefit, and even Adkins places his abilities on show by way of the useless prosthetics, nevertheless it’s the one sequence that feels really born from Chapter 4’s kitchen-sink filmmaking. It’s a detour on the street to the movie’s Parisian finale.
This closing act is the place Stahleski and Reeves’ opera really sings. Not since Ethan Hunt destroyed a toilet within the Grand Palais has an motion film had a lot enjoyable tearing up Paris. It’s an evening of one million bullets gallivanting from one landmark to the following and evoking arcade logic in every single place. It’s bought the DNA of extra apparent action-shooters to the less-expected, like a Frogger fever dream in entrance of the Arc de Triomphe (full with fanciful canine stunts!). If all of Wick’s adversaries aren’t lengthy for this world, physics was first to chew the mud. Serving as a eager show of pacing, this prolonged romp acknowledges, even embraces that its runtime is closing in on 180 minutes. The extra Wick blasts his means by way of, the extra he appears to really feel it to his core. Reeves has at all times excelled at portraying a sure weariness within the latter half of his profession, however the method by which he (and by proxy, the movie) molds fatigue right into a particular impact right here is frankly masterful. All culminates in a sight-gag punchline in Montmartre that obtained the movie’s greatest snicker, and a continuing stunt that’s nothing wanting comedic gold.
Such is the character of the most recent John Wick entry: its ambitions are plentiful, its property as efficient as they’ve ever been. If it threatens an excessive amount of of an excellent factor, Chapter 4 advantages from a seemingly infinite properly of inventive ferocity that’s impeccably paced. And whereas one may belabor the ludicrous pratfalls and convoluted inside workings of the universe at massive, the movie acquits itself simply fantastic with an Ian McShane proclamation: “Simply have enjoyable on the market.”
John Wick: Chapter 4 opens in theaters on Friday, March 24.
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