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John Wick: Chapter 4 Movie Review

John Wick: Chapter 4 is a 2023 neo-noir action thriller film directed by Chad Stahelski and starring Keanu Reeves. It’s an overlong, but well executed action flick.

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“How you do anything is how you do everything“

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With the price on his head ever increasing, legendary hit man John Wick takes his fight against the High Table global as he seeks out the most powerful players in the underworld, from New York to Paris to Japan to Berlin. This is the longest John Wick movie, clocking in at almost three hours. And it felt like that throughout. It was overlong, overwhelming in its never-ending action scenes and eventually I grew tired of it.

There is very little story to be found here. For all the mythology that the series introduced in its later entries, there is actually very little of actual merit here in terms of storytelling. It’s an interesting world for sure, but it’s not well developed at all. I wanted more dialogue and less action, especially given its staggering length.

Keanu Reeves executed his action scenes effortlessly. He was terrific, but his character continues to be slim and underdeveloped. He barely got any dialogue here, which was frustrating. But I did respect the choice to kill off the franchise’s protagonist in the third act and that entire section was exhilarating and so much fun. The heightened stakes were much appreciated.

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What I particularly admired in John Wick: Chapter 4 was the technical aspects. It is rare to find a movie that is actually well lit in this genre. This one looked gorgeous through and through. The editing, sound and cinematography were all stellar. The action is quite fun at times, but too many shootouts and not enough of one on one combat was frustrating to me as somebody who favors the latter.