Even the best movie franchises begin to run out of steam over time. The things that seemed so fresh and innovative and interesting the first time around inevitably grow less so over time and when the filmmakers try to throw big gimmicks into the mix in order to spice things up (such as the inexplicable sojourn into outer space during the last Fast and the Furious extravaganza), they tend to suggest desperation rather than inspiration. For a long time, the only long-running film franchise that I could think of that consistently and successfully raised the stakes each time, both in terms of ingenuity and thrills, was the Mad Max series, a group of films that started off on a high not with the cult favorite Mad Max, beautifully built upon that one with the even-better follow-up The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome before topping even those accomplishments with the instant classic Mad Max: Fury Road, a genuine cinematic landmark that worked both on a dramatic level and as the kind of jaw-dropping spectacle that you couldn’t quite believe actually existed, even as it was unfolding before your eyes.
When I reviewed John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum, the third entry in the surprisingly successful action franchise featuring Keanu Reeves as a soulful ex-hired killer who is pulled back into the game and finds himself battling countless arrays of bad guys in exquisitely choreographed fight scenes, it struck me that this series, which began with the impressive 2014 original and continued with the even better John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) and the better-than-that Chapter 3, it struck me that this was perhaps the first major film series since the Mad Max films that not only went out of its way to expand and explore the universe that was created for it by the filmmakers each time out instead of merely repeating what they had already done before, only bigger and louder. While Chapter 3 might not have been quite the equal of Fury Road, I observed, it was definitely as strong and ambitious as Thunderdome, which meant that it still managed to beat out practically any other contemporary genre film of note and would prove to be unfathomably hard to top, if anyone dared to even attempt such a thing.
Now comes John Wick: Chapter 4 and, to put it simply, not only does it manage to outdo its predecessors, its combination of sheer ambition and stunning execution is of a sort not seen on a movie screen since the arrival of Fury Road. This is pop cinema on the grandest scale imaginable, a symphony of bullets, blades and brawls that has been executed with the kind of astonishing grace and precision that is all too rare in American action cinema at the moment. And yet, those moments in which people are not immediately trying to kill John Wick—they are rare, true, but they do occur—are just as impressive as well thanks to a screenplay that presents what could have been a simplistic and potentially monotonous revenge drama with an enormous amount of wit and style and performances that find just the right balance between the self-serious and the self-aware throughout to keep it from degenerating into self-conscious camp. Like its predecessors, the results are so impressive that when it is all over, you come away from it both exhilarated and slightly annoyed at other movies of its ilk that aren’t nearly as grand in their ambitions.
How grand are its ambitions this time around, you may wonder. At the very start of the film, there is a direct homage to an older film. This is not especially audacious in and of itself, I suppose—any number of movies these days contain homages, conscious or otherwise, to past films—but in this case, the film in question is nothing less than David Lean’s historical epic Lawrence of Arabia. Not only that, the bit that it evokes is not just one of the most famous moments in that film but the entirety of screen history—the still-startling bit in which a lit match is extinguished and viewers are immediately plunged into the vastness of a desert landscape. The moment is funny, of course, but it also comes across as director Chad Stahelski, the one-time stunt man who has helmed all the John Wick films so far, throwing down the gauntlet and suggesting that he is truly swinging for the fences with a movie of the kind of breathtaking scope and scale of the likes of Lawrence of Arabia. In almost any other case, such a move would be seen as insanely cheeky at best and wildly hubristic at worst—in this case, though, the subsequent three hours show that both he and his film are more than capable of covering the check that it writes in those opening moments.
Exactly why the story opens in the desert will most likely be a mystery to those coming into it with no awareness of the previous installments and indeed, the film itself prefers to avoid rehash the backstory for newcomers—frankly, if you are coming into a movie subtitled Chapter 4 without brushing up on the earlier parts, that is entirely on you. Suffice it to say, Wick is still being pursued by the leaders of the High Table, the shadowy organization of international assassins that are as big on formality, tradition and rules as they are on spilling blood that is now under the control of a new Marquis, Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), who will spare no expense to finally eliminate him once and for all. Tired of the constant running, Wick learns from Winston (Ian McShane), the owner of the New York iteration of the Continental—a string of High Table-run hotels where assassins are strictly forbidden from plying their trade while on its ground (a rule that, shall we say, has been violated a couple of times by this point)—of a bylaw of the High Table rules that allows him to directly challenge the Marquis to a one-on-one duel and that all contracts against him will be nullified if he is victorious.
This may not sound like a particularly deep or innovative plot, I concede, but it is just enough for Stahelski and co-writers Shay Hatten, Michael Finch and Derek Kolstad to spin into a globe-trotting adventure that takes viewers from that aforementioned desert to New York, Tokyo and Berlin before landing in Paris, where practically the entire city turns into a battleground before that climactic duel outside of the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. It also brings Wick into contact with a bunch of characters, familiar faces from the series and newcomers alike, who are either determined to help Wick or kill him, though a number of them toggle back and forth between those two choices as things progress and the bodies begin to stack up throughout the world (not that anyone ever seems to notice, of course).
In addition to Winston, the returning regulars include the always-shifting Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) and Charon (Lance Reddick, who passed away last week), Winston’s ever-loyal Continental concierge. Among the newcomers to the fold are Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada), the owner of the Tokyo Continental who is willing to risk everything in order to assist old friend Wick and Akira (Rina Sawayama), who is Shimazu’s daughter and much less willing to risk everything for the sake of Wick, though she is still more than willing to join the fray when representatives of the High Table attack in the hopes of nailing their prey. There is a mysterious killer known as The Tracker (Shamier Anderson), who arrives with his loyal pet dog (fans of the series will note the significance of that) and who is willing to sell his services to the highest bidder. Most significantly, there is Caine (martial arts legend Donnie Yen), a blind assassin (don’t worry, he gets the job done) who is also an old friend of Wick’s but who finds himself pressed into service by the Marquis in order to protect someone even closer to him.
The quality of the acting performances in an over-the-top action film of this sort is usually not much of a consideration—the filmmakers are usually so busy with trying to get all of the technical aspects to come together that the actors are usually left to fend for themselves. The Wick films, on the other hand, have traditionally been filled with colorful performances and that is definitely the case here. Of the returning actors, McShane is clearly having a blast, savoring every line of dialogue like a kid with a particularly tasty bit of candy, and Fishburne and Reddick also make strong impressions. Of the newcomers, Yen is pretty spectacular in the action scenes, of course, but he is also a lot of fun the rest of the time playing a character whose loyalties can switch on a dime, often with hilarious and/or thrilling results. As Akira, Sawayama, a major pop star in Japan making her screen debut, cuts such a memorable figure that I would love to see a spin-off venture focusing solely on her character. And while the Tracker character played by Anderson is perhaps the one element of the film that doesn’t quite work, the dog that is his constant companion pretty much steals ever single scene it is in, especially in the moments when it decides to entry the fray as well. Then there is Keanu, returning once again to the role that he was clearly born to play with his inane laid-back soulfulness continuing to serve as a marvelously effective counterpoint to the mayhem that he is continually compelled to deliver.
The potential problem for a movie that is wall-to-wall mayhem is that the big action beats run the considerable risk of growing monotonous after a while—starting out at a peak level of excitement and maintaining it for an entire running time is extraordinarily difficult to pull off, especially in a film clocking in at nearly three full hours. Somehow, Stahelski, along with his production crew and stunt team, has managed to avoid that by giving each of the big action sequences enough individual style, flair and excitement (aided immensely by the decision to shoot most of the action in long shots that emphasize elaborate choreography over rapid-fire editing) so that they never feel repetitive. Although the early skirmishes—including a brawl in an art gallery in the Tokyo Continental that turns everything into a Jackson Pollock and a battle in a Berlin nightclub where not even the wholesale slaughter is enough to get people to abandon the dance floor—are gorgeously excited set pieces that would have each served as the eye-popping finales of most movies, they are merely appetizers for the main course that is served up once Wick lands in Paris for his final reckoning.
Kicking off with an explicit and hilarious homage to another action classic, the sequence, which consumes pretty much the entirety of the film’s last hour, finds Wick doing battle in the crowded streets that find him dodging killers and speeding traffic and an apartment building shootout that is perhaps the greatest Brian De Palma sequence ever made by someone other than De Palma. This is all prelude to his attempts to mount the 200+ steps leading to the Sacre-Couer, where he encounters countless hurdles in his race against time in a seemingly Sisyphean struggle that, in terms of it precision movements, breathtaking thrills and mordant humor, comes across like an especially wild Buster Keaton routine. This is easily the greatest sustained burst of action in any movie since the final movement of Fury Road—a master class in cinematic mayhem that will leave you wanting to see it again the moment that it finally concludes, if only to prove to yourself that it actually happened and it wasn’t just a figment of you imagination.
That sequence is clearly the highest point of John Wick: Chapter 4 but this is a film that doesn’t really have any dull spots to speak of, which is especially miraculous considering its length. Between the constantly engrossing visual style, the breathless staging of the action beats and the pitch-perfect acting, the film is never less than amazing as it constantly strives to entertain and energize viewers without resorting to rehashes of stuff that worked before. The result may seem at times like a live-action cartoon (especially in regards to the tremendous punishment that Wick receives with seemingly nary a side effect) but it is never cartoonish. I cannot say for certain whether this is, as some have suggested, the final John Wick film—there is already a spinoff starring Ana De Armas and a prequel series for Peacock currently in the hopper—but if that is the case, then this film closes off the saga on the highest possible note imaginable.