John Wick 4 Gives Us a Satisfying Ending
Keanu Reeves and Director Chad Stahelski deliver a long, wild, and satisfying end to the John Wick saga. The hyper-violent, over-the-top shoot’em up featuring one of the most popular actors around delivered fans a great ending and left open the possibility of more stories in the universe.
Keanu Reeves returns as the titular John Wick, an assassin who is excommunicado from the table, and seeking freedom from the enormous bounty on his head. After being betrayed in the previous movie, his war with the international criminal underworld is escalating. It is getting so big, it took 2 hours and 49 minutes to finish.
The movie sports a fantastic supporting cast of Lawrence Fishburne, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Clancy Brown. As action movies go, the talent level is above and beyond expectations.
Keanu himself, as much as I love him, speaks very little in this film and delivers some lines in a low-energy, stunted manner. It is possible the 58 year old superstar is reaching the end of his career. Either that or the director didn’t want him to do too many takes. Yet, his limited lines and wooden performance takes little away from the experience.
In a sad note, Lance Reddick passed away just before the premiere of this movie. An actor with a long and distinguished career, he played notable roles in Oz, Law & Order, The Wire, Fringe, Bosch, and Resident Evil. His role as Charon in John Wick may be his largest and most well-known role, the courteous and unshakeable concierge of The Continental Hotel. He was only 60 years old.
Lance Reddick, 1962-2023
The movie’s action and choreography is impressive, as expected. The martial arts and gun play are a spectacle to watch but do get a little too ridiculous at times. Yet this is balanced out with a fun factor. This movie is serious when it needs to be, and fun when it needs to be, hitting the bulls eye in terms of balance.
You know what you’re getting in a John Wick movie, and in Chapter 4, you are getting a John Wick-esque finale. The story is extremely simple and most of the movie is one action sequence after another, which it depends on to keep you entertained. The runtime is excessive for an action movie. There is probably about 20-30 minutes that could’ve been cut from this self-indulgent film.
All things considered, it was still a fun time at the theater. The first movie remains the best but this was a worthy sequel.
It is reminiscent of the long list of classic shoot’em up movies from Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise, and Wesley Snipes. Many of their movies are forgettable but some were and still are, exciting and fun to watch.
John Wick 4 is part of an interesting new pattern. Many of the most successful movies of the past couple years have a distinctive 80s and 90s feel to them. Whether it is Top Gun: Maverick, Creed III, or The Batman, they all seem to draw inspiration from the great films of the last century.
You could also argue Spider-Man: No Way Home and Avatar 2 both bare more resemblance to their predecessors from the early 2000s, rather than more recent superhero and science fiction films respectively. As I’ve argued previously, times are changing. The movies that will be in theaters in the near future are going to have a distinctly different feel to them, I guarantee it.
It is also admirable how Keanu Reeves carries himself in comparison to other stars. Keanu is notoriously humble and generous. He is calm, quiet, collected and keeps to himself in his private life. There are countless videos of him talking to fans out in public, taking the subway, being generous with his time for fans.
Contrast the Keanu to the behavior of Brie Larson, Simu Liu, Viola Davis, Chris Evans, Jennifer Lawrence, Pedro Pascal, and Billy Eichner. None of them can be accused of being low key or humble. Instead, they act entitled to their fame, outspoken in their criticisms of others, eager to use their platform to tell others how to live, and narcissistic in their evaluation of their own work. Their performances are hailed as historic, world-changing, even life-saving if you ask them. I won’t bother bringing up what the Rings of Power cast said of their own show before its premiere. You’d think they were curing cancer.
Anyway, John Wick 4 is a great action film, a satisfying conclusion to the franchise, and delivers on all expectations.