Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Chad Stahelski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier
Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Ian McShane
I can't think of a worse way to spend my time than watching someone else
play a video game. Even as a kid I would slink off into the corner of a
friend's bedroom and read a magazine while they took their turn on a single
player game on the Commodore 64. Yet today there are people who don't watch
movies but happily watch strangers streaming themselves playing video games
online, and some of them even pay for the privilege. If you're the sort of
person who enjoys watching other people play video games,
John Wick: Chapter 4 is the movie for you.
The movie acknowledges its video game influence at several points, with a
bird's eye view sequence that recalls the top-down shoot 'em-ups of the
1980s. There's a set-piece that turns a busy Parisian thoroughfare into a
big game of Frogger. The moments between the action play like video game cut
scenes, only with worse dialogue. I'm guessing the people who make a living
getting paid to be watched by strangers as they play video games fall into
one of two categories: they're either very attractive or very charismatic.
If it's the latter you might understand why someone might want to root for
them as they play a video game (I don't understand, but you might). In
John Wick: Chapter 4 the titular gunfighter is so devoid of
personality at this point that it's like watching a video game play itself.
Reeves is given minimal dialogue here, which only serves to expose how
wooden an actor he is. He kills so many people that it's impossible to care
about him at this point, and the movie is so long that you'll find yourself
willing the faceless goons to finally learn to shoot straight in order to
put Wick and the rest of us out of our misery.
The
second
and
third
instalments of the franchise took the premise of
3:10 to Yuma and The Warriors (two movies you could watch in the same time it takes to watch
John Wick: Chapter 4) and stretched it out to the point where it became translucent. The fourth
chapter sees Wick still on the run, with the bounty on his head constantly
being upped because none of the faceless goons he encounters can shoot
straight. There's an on-the-nose "homage" to The Warriors that
would have been the point where I walked out were I not planning to write a
review. To paraphrase Will Smith, keep Walter Hill's name out of your
mouth.
The faceless goons are working under the big bad, Marquis Vincent de
Gramont (Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård butchering a French
accent). A few goons are a little more than faceless. They're played by
Donnie Yen, Shamier Anderson and Scott Adkins, three
performers whose charisma doesn't do the leading man any favours by
comparison. As is always the case when Asian martial artists appear in
Hollywood movies, Yen's talents are barely exploited here. He plays a
Zatoichi-esque blind swordsman, and you can't help but think he was given
this disadvantage to make Keanu look a little more convincing (Watching Yen
and Reeves perform side by side is like that scene in
Xanadu where Gene Kelly dances with Olivia Newton-John).
Anderson has popped up in a few supporting roles recently and has stolen the
show with a laid back, very Canadian likeability. Adkins is probably the
most talented action star in the western world, but he's lumbered here with
a ridiculous fat-suit (a bizarre piece of broad comedy in an otherwise
sombre movie). This gives us one great moment when Adkins performs his
trademark spinning kick while looking like Sydney Greenstreet, but it denies
him the ability to let loose in the manner of his many straight to VOD
action fests. Once again it seems like a talented athletic performer has
been purposely hindered to make Keanu look better.
Watching Wick constantly shoot his opponents in the head is both
mind-numbing and a little depressing, and some of the set-pieces play like
the disturbed fantasy of a budding school shooter. Having recently watched
Paris Memories, a movie about a French woman trying to come to terms with surviving the
November 2015 Paris attacks, watching Wick gun down dozens of people in the
streets of the French capital didn't play like escapism, but rather a grim
reminder of reality. This series began with a man seeking revenge, but at
this point Wick has practically become the villain of his own story. The
series is almost an unintentional commentary on America's 21st century
foreign policy.
The best chapter of the series is the second one, the one with a sense of humour. Since then the series has become as solemn as a Soviet era drama about living
under Nazi occupation. The only laughs here come courtesy of some neat line
delivery by Yen and Anderson; otherwise it's a grim spectacle, and not much
of a spectacle at that. The second chapter was one of the best looking
movies to come out of Hollywood in recent years, drawing influence from
Italian cinema and resembling a boutique men's magazine come to life. The
last two chapters have opted for a sickly teal and amber aesthetic, and this
one overloads the frame at times with so much garishness that it's headache
inducing.
The ending appears to close the book on this series, but no doubt more
instalments will follow. I don't think I can take anymore myself though.
Yeah, I'm thinking I'm done with John Wick.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is on UK/ROI
VOD now.
