john wick: chapter 4
STARRING: keanu reeves, donnie yen, bill skarsgard, and lance reddick
REVIEWER: lyall carter
With the price on his head ever increasing, legendary hit man John Wick takes his fight against the High Table global
The John Wick franchise has been a smash hit from the get go with audiences, critics, and the box office alike. And no small wonder. The John Wick films always deliver a cracking tale, hyper realistic fight scenes, and Keanu Reeves. What could possibly be better?
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Unrelenting in its fight and fury, John Wick: Chapter Four is a crowd pleasing action stacked delight. The reason we go to the movies.
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Keanu Reeves returns in one of his signature roles in John Wick: Chapter 4, as the un-retired hitman uncovers a path to defeating The High Table – a council of twelve crime lords that governs the underworld’s most powerful organizations, and which has put a multi-million-dollar bounty on Wick’s head for his defiance. But before Wick can earn his freedom, he must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances around the globe that turns old friends into deadly foes.
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John Wick: Chapter 4 picks up right where the last instalment left off, completely immersing the audience back into the world of The High Table and double crossing assassins once more.
One of the many things that the John Wick franchise does so well is world building, fooling the audience into believing that there really is a shadowy world of assassins out there (there probably is to be fair). In doing so it adds a heck of a lot of weight to the tale, especially as new and old characters are inserted into the narrative.
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When I first heard the runtime of nearly three hours, I wondered how the filmmakers would be able to maintain the momentum of the story while balancing a sense of action fatigue.
On the whole, John Wick: Chapter 4 doesn’t feel like three hours. There is enough bone crunching, head smacking action that is dished out, choreographed, and shot in a variety of ways that doesn’t make it feel gratuitous at all.
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Keanu is again on top form, putting many assailants into the ground with little more than a grimace. Bill Skarsgard plays the Marquis, this instalments villain beautifully, wonderfully capturing both the menace but vulnerability of the character.
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Unrelenting in its fight and fury, John Wick: Chapter Four is a crowd pleasing action stacked delight. The reason we go to the movies.