Once more we have Keanu putting on a fine suite and scooping up some semi-autos to start wracking up his body count—we’re a ways into the John Wick series now, so while there’s no denying the style and slickness we’ve had, it’s time to see if it keeps up the pace at part four. Here’s my take on this new chapter, as we see whether Johnny Boy here will solve all of his problems with bullets, or just most of them!
We of course follow on from the first one, with Mr. Wick’s betrayal, and once again having Neo reunited with Morpheus as Keanu pairs up alongside Laurence Fishburne. Things start familiar enough—John is basically waging a one-man war against the international syndicate-cult that seemingly governs the entire global underworld here, with all of its esoteric rules and rituals. Of course, even here, the characters point out that even he can’t bring such an entity down single-handedly—and the film decides to add something on top to mix the formula as Keanu is forced to contend with Ip Man himself, Donnie Yen. Once more, Yen plays a blind martial master, here an assassin who’s more or less WIck’s equal—but also has just as many personal reasons to be involved in it all.
So there’s at least something to keep us invested this far in, and the film to its credit does it best to establish stakes for everyone. We have one last appearance for the unfortunately passed Lance Reddick, we have Ian McShane growling his way between everyone, and we even have a new character with Shamier Anderson with his own arc—though to me, the latter almost felt like an afterthought. Our antagonist is a high-ranking enforcer played by Bill Skarsgard, who’s the sinister baby-faced youthful contrast to Wick and his comrades. So far, so adequate for the task at hand.
And yep, all the neon-cast action you wanted is here—I always enjoy the lighting and choreography in these films, and here it’s on point, with gold-bathed cathedrals to purple-washed Japanese terraces. There’s brutal fights against oni-masked commands, there’s a throwdown against Scott Adkins as a chunky capo in a pulsing German club—so far, so entertaining.
Now, the film comes out to about three hours—something that does get justified at the end, but it also means it wears just a little thin when we get to the last act in Paris. It starts to become a bit obvious that Johnny Boy here is basically immune to blunt force trauma with all the car slams he ends up taking over the extended course of it, which may start to push plausibility even by the hyperreal standards here for some. I do at least like that the final confrontation is a rather low-key and very much personal affair, as it should be—sometimes, less is more after all the extravagance we have.
And yeah, I do like that we have a solid conclusion this time—it is funny to look back over the series, which all started as a fairly straightforward revenge story over a dead dog set around New York, eventually embracing and leaning into the over the top worldbuilding it but hinted at. Keanu might be getting old, but just as the Matrix marked a genre turning point for action flicks in its time, so has the Wick series—even if at the end it stretched out things as far as they can get. Still, while this one’s a little rougher around the edges by the end, it has its highlights, and it still has all the key ingredients—you enjoyed things so far, this one doesn’t disappoint.
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