JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4 feature review 

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• Lionsgate

Because the world is wide and mysterious, I assume there must be someone out there who, nearly a decade into the John Wick franchise, actually cares about the emotional arc of the main character. Emotion certainly played a significant role in the initial premise, as legendary, feared, retired assassin Wick (Keanu Reeves) returned to his old life of murder, carnage and natty-black-suit-wearing after the death of his wife to avenge the killing of the puppy that provided a link to her. But despite the series occasionally hand-waving at Wick's deep well of feelings, audiences didn't keep coming back for that reason, any more than they keep coming back to Fast/Furious movies because of all the platitudes about "family."

Like their namesake anti-hero, the John Wick movies are relentless machines of forward-momentum action, given additional spark by complex rules and dynamics of an underworld society, full of codes of conduct and a complex bureaucracy to enforce them. If there are indeed viewers invested in the depths of John Wick's heart, they could probably fit comfortably within the confines of a single theater.

It's a little bit strange, then, to see John Wick: Chapter 4 devoting so much time to the idea of Wick's interpersonal connections. After he was left for dead at the end of 2019's John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, he's still being sought out by the High Table, which has given power over the search to the sadistic Marquis (Bill Skarsgård). The Marquis enlists as his primary enforcer the blind assassin Caine (Donnie Yen), whom we learn was an old friend of Wick's. Wick, meanwhile, seeks sanctuary with Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada), another old friend. Our protagonist even gets sentimental with Winston (Ian McShane), the now-excommunicated former manager of the Continental hotel who tried to murder Wick in the previous movie. At nearly 170 minutes, John Wick: Chapter 4 has a lot of stuff it wants to include, including plenty of warm fuzzies.

Fortunately, it is much more concerned with including the remarkable shootouts/punchouts/knifeouts that have been the series' trademark, and director Chad Stahelski again delivers the goods in jaw-dropping fashion. It takes a little bit longer here in Chapter 4 to get the adrenaline pumping, but once the thumping strains of Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard's score get rolling, the movie rarely pauses for a breath. That goes double for the final hour, which includes not one, not two, but three of the most gleefully insane pieces of choreographed violence ever captured for cinema: John Wick taking on seemingly every assassin in Paris in the middle of the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe; an overhead view of Wick employing incendiary "dragon's breath" ammunition; and a staircase battle as Wick races the clock to a life-or-death appointment. As supernaturally resilient as John Wick seems to be—he is hit by cars literally three times in the space of a few minutes, and falls multiple floors multiple times, without seeming more than annoyed by the encounters—it's hard to care when you end up with this much amazing stuff along the way.

That sense of John Wick as practically superhuman feels particularly elevated here, as Chapter 4 begins to take on the vibe of a comic-book spectacle crossed with James Bond gadgetry. There is at least an attempt to explain Wick avoiding gunshots by having the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) deliver him a suit made out of Kevlar, which later pays off with a great low-key joke. The stakes are raised with multiple antagonists for Wick, including a grotesque gold-toothed killer (Scott Adkins) straight out of Dick Tracy, and a nameless tracker (Shamier Anderson) who seems to exist primarily to set up a possible spin-off. There is, however, still plenty of time left to focus on Yen's Caine, whose fluidity offers a great counterpoint to Wick's brute force.

Does it matter if Chapter 4 provides a sense of closure as Wick attempts to settle all of his old scores, or if he reconciles with his old friends? To someone out there, sure, maybe. Then again, that would mean he would have nothing left to fight for. And for nearly 10 years, one of the great visceral joys of cinema has been watching John Wick have something to fight for.