BEFORE: This was the first film I was able to link to in January that made me say, "Oh, yeah, well I HAVE to go through that film, no matter what." So that's a must-watch, I suppose. Coming up in about a week is "The Whale", and that's another one that's been on the list for a short time, but is marked as a must-watch. Then I think one more of those the following weekend, and really, February will be here before you know it.
But before the themed month of romance, January is an all-format month, for sure. Norwegian films, sports movies, mob comedies, a sci-fi thriller, the Motley Crue biopic, a documentary, a World War II holocaust film followed by a quirky quiz-show comedy, and also "The Little Mermaid". Format-wise, I'm bouncing around like crazy, but if it fits in the chain, it can be part of the chain. I know what's coming, and part of me wishes I could design some kind of software that would pick the next movie for me, so I could share in the surprise, but making the chains is a big part of my enjoyment.
Shamier Anderson carries over from "Stowaway".
THE PLOT: John Wick uncovers a path to defeating the High Table, but before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.
AFTER: The theory is that the cream should rise to the top, if I program this correctly. It's fine for me to fast-track important franchise films, or in essence schedule them more quickly than the other films, I can do whatever I want. Anyway some films are "bricks" and others are "mortar" and I program some films I might not otherwise have watched, just to help make the connections. That's fine, I've discovered a lot of decent films that way, going down paths that I might not have traveled otherwise. But films like "John Wick 4" are kind of in that top tier, you put that on the list and then it becomes a game of "How quickly can I get THERE?"
This film did play at the theater, and a lot of people who work there were very eager to see it - I'm talking about a group of projectionists and sound techs, they're all super into movies (like, who ISN'T?) and so when there's a screening of this going on in the big theater, that means there may be a second screening going on in the small theater, just for management, the techs and their friends. Sure, why not? But then somebody still has to be working, keeping an eye on the theater while the movie is taking place, and for many shifts, that's obviously me. I could, of course, ask to sit in on any film, but then that has to be on a day that I'm not working, which is fine, but it's an extra trip into Manhattan on my day off, and so most of the time it's not worth the effort, not when "John Wick 4" will be on premium cable or streaming on some platform that I can access within an increasingly small number of months. OK, so really it's been almost a year, this came out in theaters in March of 2023. It's fine, I can wait 10 months to see this, it turned out, all things at the proper time, right? And it helps me get through January and to where I'll need to be at the end of the month, so it's all good.
What I remember, though, is how LOUD the screening was. Even with the theater doors closed, I could stand in the middle lobby and hear every gunshot, thrown punch or explosion - but I think maybe the techs played this one at full volume so the seats would rattle from all the noise. I remember watching an interview with the sound guy from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and he pointed out that the sounds they used for punches in that film would be used for explosions in any other film, and I think there's something like that going on with "John Wick", you're meant to FEEL this film, not just hear it. .
Look, it's not a film with complicated dialogue, nobody's going to have complicated emotions going on or moral dilemmas related to finding their biological father or anything, it's just going to be fight scene after fight scene until we get to the ending point for this chapter, then we'll pick up the battle again in "John Wick: Chapter 5". By now we should all know what to expect from this franchise and not go in hoping that this time he's really going to find peace and work everything out, and everybody's going to get along fine. Not gonna happen.
They put Wick through the ringer on this one - he jumps out of a window at one point and takes a five-story fall, lands on a car I think, but then he somehow gets up and walks away. During the big traffic scene around the Arc de Triomphe I think he gets hit by a few more cars, but he also throws a bunch of enemies into cars, smashes cars into a few more guys, and of course SO much shooting. It's John Wick vs. like 100 enemies at a time, because why have him go straight to the boss level when getting there can be so much a part of the fun? But if anything it's TOO much action, if that's possible. I think there are maybe 6 or 7 long fight scenes, but the movie is just 10 minutes shy of three hours long. That's a lot of downtime, or maybe it's that the action scenes are all stretched out to be longer than they need to be. This could have been 130 minutes if they trimmed things down a bit - but, on the other hand, if you think about it, you pay the same ticket price at the theater for a three-hour movie than you do for a 2-hour movie, so you're certainly getting MORE bang for your buck when you see "John Wick 4".
Still, I'd cut the first half hour right out of the film, nothing really HAPPENS in it, lots of wasted time, until the High Table decides to close the Continental in NYC because it harbored John Wick last time, or something. Umm, it's been a while since "Parabellum" so I had to look it up - John Wick was sent to kill Winston, the manager of the Continental Hotel for Wayward Assassins. But John refused to kill his old friend, so the Adjudicator sent an army of assassins to kill them both, Winston turned on Wick and shot him, but then also secretly saved his life and delivered him to the Bowery King. OK, got it. Now the new Marquis of the High Table decides that the NYC Continental is no longer needed, so he blows it up - well, at least he gave everyone a warning so they could evacuate, he didn't HAVE to do that. NITPICK POINT: A whole building in NYC blows up and nobody cares? It doesn't even make the news? Everyone just kind of says, "Oh, yeah, that's that crazy hotel for assassins, we always figured somebody would implode it sooner or later..."
Then this kind of becomes a rebuilding chapter in the franchise, John Wick is still "excommunicado" but he travels to the Morocco desert again to kill another Elder - I think this one replaced the one seen in Episode 3, or they couldn't get the same actor back - and then Wick hides out in the Osaka Continental, but the Marquis sends his men to look for Wick there, and also shut down THAT part of the franchise. Assassins will now have to stay at the Osaka Hampton Inn, but they'll get upgraded to a suite for the price of a regular double room, it's a good deal. The Hilton Suites are nice, too, I think they both come with free breakfast, but book early for the best rates, and you can cancel up until 24 hours before your stay, in case you find a better deal. Don't sign up for the loyalty rewards plan, it's a scam.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, John Wick's battling back. For some reason he needs to get back INTO the organization with the goal of getting out of it. I'm not sure this makes sense, like once he got marked as "excommunicado", isn't he OUT of the organization? This is what he wanted, right? Jesus, John Wick, just move to Montana or something and work on a ranch, nobody's going to look for you there. OK, Idaho then, just get out of town and start over. Nope, he's got to get back IN before he can get OUT, something about clearing all of his obligations - so he goes back to the Ruska Roma syndicate and kills someone for his adoptive sister, which means that she can sponsor him for re-admission to the guild, at which point he can challenge the Marquis to a duel, if you follow the "Old Way" rules, at least. Former Continental manager Winston decides to be his second in the duel, which means that if Wick wins, he gets the hotel rebuilt and he gets re-instated as manager, but if Wick loses the duel, he dies, too. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose - but come ON, it's a chance to return all the pieces to their starting positions, and things will be back to "normal" at the start of "John Wick 5" so of course that's how it's all going to play out.
So from Osaka we travel to Berlin, where Wick has to kill Killa Harkan (kind of like the Kingpin, but really just a stunt-man in a fat suit) in a dance club that looks like an enormous car wash from the future - seriously, there's water flowing all over the place and a foam room, I think, and don't pay extra for the hot wax because that's a scam, too. And while John Wick is throwing axes into various hitmen and bullets are flying every which way, those crazy German club kids just keep right on dancing, like it's the most normal thing to have a shoot-out in your dance club. Yeah, I know this happens all the time in America now, but usually a nightclub shooting means the party is over and the place becomes a crime scene. Not in Berlin, where they don't stop the music, not even to clean up all the dead bodies, it's kind of disconcerting.
Oh, yeah, there's another assassin named Caine who works for the Marquis, and is it just me or does Donnie Yen play a lot of blind martial arts guys? This is almost exactly the character he played in "Rogue One", no? What's the selling point of being blind and still being an assassin, and is he very good at his job because his other senses are heightened, or is he terrible at his job because if he's too far away, he's just shooting randomly at his target? I've got so many questions about this, because at least in "Rogue One" his character had the Force (we assume) or perhaps was just very lucky, again and again, but here I don't see how he lost his sight and still kept his job as an elite assassin. You'd think he'd go on disability and then his bills would be covered, he wouldn't have to work again, but now, he takes his assignments in braille and then goes out and does the job, I guess he just needs a little help finding his target, that's all. But hey, you put him in a room with the guy you want killed and he'll take care of it, somehow. Still, I don't know why you'd hire a blind assassin when there are others available who can see their targets, just saying.
And there's a "Tracker" who works with a dog, and dogs have always been a big part of this franchise. It's tough to say where the Tracker's loyalty lies, like he keeps trying to kill John WIck because that's a resumé-booster, plus the bounty keeps going up, it's $20 million then he gets it raised to $30 million and then it's $40 million. Sure, that's a tidy little sum but it's going up for ALL the assassins in Paris, too, not just the Tracker. It kind of makes more sense to keep it that figure low, because then there's less competition, no? When every single assassin in France is getting their instructions from the secret assassin DJ about which arrondissement Wick has been spotted in, the Tracker's got to battle his own way through 78 other guys just to have a chance of shooting Wick, when if the bounty were lower he'd be more likely to collect it. Half a loaf is better than none, right?
Just to prove that this film takes its sweet time getting where it needs to be - to make it to the duel, Wick has to be at a particular Paris cathedral at sunrise. But of course there's a giant stairway full of assassins he's got to climb first - like 200 steps and it's a tough slog. The Marquis, of course, cheated and increased the bounty on John Wick, because if Wick gets killed on the way to the duel then the Marquis wins by default. That all tracks, but then when Wick gets to the top of the stairs, he gets thrown back down by the Marquis' underboss - and it's SEVEN stories of stairs, one after another, it takes a full five minutes of screen time for him to toss and tumble down all those flights. Look, I'm not the most graceful person in the world, but I'd like to think that if I were falling down seven flights of stairs, I'd find a way after THREE to somehow grab a railing or brace myself against the stairs or use momentum to move to the side and get some friction from the grass.
Then we get bogged down in the rules of dueling, but sure, I get it, there's got to be some kind of technicality that gets Wick back on top, and also some reason why the Marquis himself would participate in the dangerous part, instead of just putting his blind assassin in as his Second to take the hit for him. Anyway, you've got to read ALL of the rules of the inside cover of the board game box if you're going to need to find a way to win. So I approve this message.
Also starring Keanu Reeves (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Donnie Yen (last seen in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny"), Bill Skarsgard (last seen in "Barbarian"), Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "Fled"), Hiroyuki Sanada (last seen in "Bullet Train"), Lance Reddick (last seen in "Godzilla vs. Kong"), Rina Sawayama, Marko Zaror, Scott Adkins (last seen in "American Assassin"), Clancy Brown (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), Ian McShane (last seen in "Hercules" (2014)), Natalia Tena (last seen in "About a Boy"), George Georgiou (last seen in "The Mummy" (2017)), Sven Marquardt, Yoshinori Tashiro, Aimée Kwan, Daiki Suzuki, with archive footage of Bridget Moynahan (last seen in "Lord of War").
RATING: 6 out of 10 fireballs from a shotgun (what, what?)
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