The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B
As much as I like the John Wick movies, I admit that they have gradually been losing me. The original is a classic action movie and, as with most great action movies, much of the charm comes from the simplicity of its concept. Some guys just fucked with the wrong dude and it relies upon a core principle of humanity: you don’t mess with a man’s dog or his Mustang. The second and third entries, while solid action movies, lost me with the rapid and excessive world-building and massive bureaucracy built around the once simple idea of a pissed off ex-hitman. What was once a revenge story was suddenly turned into frigging Brazil, albeit with some truly kickass action set pieces.
John Wick Chapter 4 is, in some ways, a return to basics. The massive world built by the previous sequels is still there, but it takes a back seat to John and his personal mission. This is the most personal, character-based film in the series since the original and, for that reason, it is the best sequel. The biggest issue is the desire to up the extremity of the action scenes, which, while understandable, bloats the film to a ridiculous length of nearly three hours. This has the most heart and most simple premise since the original, but good lord could it use an editor.
We begin with John Wick killing the elder of the High Table, who is basically the highest ranking person in the hitman bureaucratic hierarchy. I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember the plot of Chapters 2 & 3, so I didn’t really have much context here. Fortunately, it becomes pretty self-contained and straightforward after that. The High Table appoints a new elder (played by Bill Skarsgård) and gives him unlimited authority and resources to hunt down and kill John. Eventually John realizes that his only chance of survival is to evoke a rule that grants him amnesty if he defeats the elder in a duel. But, as you might guess, he must kill a shit load of people to make his way to the final duel.
I’ll just get straight to the big negative: This movie is too long. Way, way too fucking long. Clocking in at 2 hours and 49 minutes, this may be the longest pure action movie ever made and there is just no damn reason for it. The plot certainly isn’t enough to sustain the running time, leaving action scenes to drag on well beyond the point that a sane editor would have cut things off. All of these action sequences contain incredible stunts, choreography and bone-crunching violence, but it is a case of too much of a good thing. Many sections (such as the siege of the Osaka Continental and the fight on an obnoxiously long staircase) begin with great promise and managed to hold me mesmerized….for about half of their length. By the time they neared completion, I was checking my watch and that is a shame. Some restraint would have gone a long way because there is an excellent 2-hour movie here that is dragged down by an unnecessary extra 49 minutes. I’ve heard that the first cut was 3 hours and 45 minutes long and I just can’t imagine that much footage of Keanu Reeves kicking people in the face. This isn’t Gone with the fucking Wind for fuck’s sake.
As needlessly long as the scenes may be, the action is still often incredible. The aforementioned Osaka and staircase sequences may be overindulgent, but one can’t fault the fight choreography or the creativity involved. A late sequence, with an over-head view of John launching incendiary rounds, is one of the most entertaining and creative action sequences that I’ve seen in years. The film also benefits from the addition of the incredible Donnie Yen. An action movie legend in Hong Kong, Yen has been criminally underutilized by American filmmakers and has been limited to underwhelming parts in stuff like Blade II and the godawful XXX: Return of Xander Cage. Finally, John Wick Chapter 4 gives American audiences a taste of the awesomeness of this man. Playing a blind assassin that’s forced out of retirement to hunt John, Yen provides some of my favorite moments in the film and greatly adds to the franchise’s action movie street cred. Hell, I was laughing just watching him casually eating a bowl of noodles as bullets blaze passed him in an early sequence as I knew the torrent of ass-kicking that this little, noodle-eating dude was about to unleash.
The film, and the franchise in general, as suffered a bit from what I call “John McClane syndrome.” This occurs, as it did in the Die Hard series, when a hero is fairly realistic in the first movie and becomes increasingly super-human and cartoonish as the series goes on. While John McClane is hobbled by a lack of shoes in the original Die Hard, he can drive a tank into a helicopter without batting an eye in the later installments. While John Wick Chapter 4 is a far better movie than the fourth and fifth Die Hard entries, I often did hear the Looney Tunes theme in my head during the more over-the-top sequences. John started this series as a badass, but a human badass. Here, he is indestructible. One could make a drinking game out of the number of times that John should have died over the course of the film. The downside is that you will die of alcohol poisoning while John is still shrugging off having every bone in his body completely shattered.
Despite the frequent forays into Bugs Bunny territory, this entry does also exhibit some of the heart that was missing from the other sequels. While his original reasons for seeking vengeance have faded to the background, Chapter 4 does a better job than its predecessors of centering the film around John and his reasons for doing what he does. The simplicity and the renewed focus on John’s memories of his wife give the film a grounded feeling that has been lacking since the original. I honestly don’t even remember why John was still killing people in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. This brings things full circle in some surprising ways and is, consequently, the most rewarding sequel.
While desperately in need of an editor, John Wick Chapter 4 is the best sequel in the franchise. While I still prefer the simplicity of the original, the excessive world-building has been subdued in favor of a renewed emphasis on the core story. While excessive, the action sequences are generally spectacular and the addition of Donnie Yen adds a new level to the ass-kicking that is the franchise’s calling card. I’m not exactly clamoring for another entry, but Chapter 4 is a welcome and satisfying addition to what has become a modern action icon.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wick%3A_Chapter_4#/media/File:John_Wick_-_Chapter_4_promotional_poster.jpg
