John Wick 4 and 5 - "Keanu's Gun-fu Show" meets "Fast and Furious"

Eh. It was pretty much the same as 2 and 3 for me. Well shot action scenes, acting that varies from corny to great, villain is generic, writing is still roughshod, haphazard and built more like a video game than a proper movie. They also just threw away 3's cliffhanger ending with the conflict between Winston and John...making 3 even worse than I already thought it was.

The first film is unsurprisingly still the best one. The acting was superb, the action scenes way better when everyone wasn't wearing the retarded bulletproof clothing and using medieval weaponry (It felt properly modern and realistic is all I am saying), the villain was amazing, the writing was *chef's kiss* and proved you could have an action film that was extremely well written at the same time in modern Hollywood, and I still think the movie's worldbuilding was far better when we knew almost nothing about the world.

Then again I am biased by all the stuff they have revealed about John Wick's world in 2, 3 and now 4 being mystifyingly stupid. If the first movie didn't exist, I would say 4 is an above average action film and the best of the sequels, however it suffers a lot due to being one of the sequels to that genuinely great film and continuing to come nowhere close to matching it.
 
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So the cliffhanger was just handwaved away again? Ugh guess I'm glad most of my friends ended up having to work this weekend.
 
The cliffhanger isn't handwaved. Why would he be angry at Winston after going to the desert to get his fingers chopped off and be told to kill Winston only to go back and fight with him against the High Table? Winston wanted his hotel back but didn't want to kill John so he non fatally shot him and let him fall so as to not kill him but dupe the Adjudicator. So should John be mad at Winston who's under the high table rather than at the High Table for judging Winston for actions not his own? John is angry at the same thing the Bowery King is and that's the High Table because he also got messed over by them with a penalty for their actions not to the same degree as John's. If High Table contained their rulings and punishments to John, it's a different story.
There's also the cross shown on Winston's left hand as he touches the grave plot, where John is obviously not buried, saying "Farewell, my son." The cross of the Ruska whatever's that had taken John. So how can any of Winston's actions make John angry at him when he did everything for him and never against him?
 
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I don't swear said:
The cliffhanger isn't handwaved. Why would he be angry at Winston after going to the desert to get his fingers chopped off and be told to kill Winston only to go back and fight with him against the High Table? Winston wanted his hotel back but didn't want to kill John so he non fatally shot him and let him fall so as to not kill him but dupe the Adjudicator. So should John be mad at Winston who's under the high table rather than at the High Table for judging Winston for actions not his own? John is angry at the same thing the Bowery King is and that's the High Table because he also got messed over by them with a penalty for their actions not to the same degree as John's. If High Table contained their rulings and punishments to John, it's a different story.
There's also the cross shown on Winston's left hand as he touches the grave plot, where John is obviously not buried, saying "Farewell, my son." The cross of the Ruska whatever's that had taken John. So how can any of Winston's actions make John angry at him when he did everything for him and never against him?
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You can cope all you want but shooting someone off the top of a multi-story building, even if it was a "non-fatal" shot (which is a retarded concept for anyone who has handled/owns a gun) is still trying to murder them. It doesn't matter though since Winston is still punished by the high table, still joins John's side, and John lets him do it with little issue. This ultimately makes the cliffhanger ending 3 had pointless since it doesn't have any real impact on the story and only exists to create pointless drama and build hype for the sequel that is handwaved away within the first ten minutes of said sequel. Even if it wasn't pointless, its still just shitty coincidence/"just as planned" filled writing and is simply bad on its own merits.

You can love John Wick 4 all you want, but stop trying to mental gymnastic away its flaws. Its alright to like something that is flawed.
 
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A lot of stuff in the movie seemed to just be rehashes from the previous movies.
  • Room full of glass boxes and shit
  • A Continental fight with ninjas
  • Nightclub
  • Dog that bites people in the balls
The other movies had tunnels, castles, art museums, and warehouses. I was hoping for some fresh scenery in this one. The action and choreography were still well-executed even if the guns kept triggering my autism. I liked it more than the third one but the first one is still the best by far. The more they try to get into the "lore" the more boring it gets.

If we're spitballing goofy assassin gimmicks besides being blind/attack dogs I think a falconer assassin would've been fun to see with a hawk poking peoples eyes and grabbing their guns out of their hands. It would be no less ridiculous than half the shit Donnie Yen did in this movie.
 
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MrB said:
A lot of stuff in the movie seemed to just be rehashes from the previous movies.
  • Room full of glass boxes and shit
  • A Continental fight with ninjas
  • Nightclub
  • Dog that bites people in the balls
The other movies had tunnels, castles, art museums, and warehouses. I was hoping for some fresh scenery in this one. The action and choreography were still well-executed even if the guns kept triggering my autism. I liked it more than the third one but the first one is still the best by far. The more they try to get into the "lore" the more boring it gets.

If we're spitballing goofy assassin gimmicks besides being blind/attack dogs I think a falconer assassin would've been fun to see with a hawk poking peoples eyes and grabbing their guns out of their hands. It would be no less ridiculous than half the shit Donnie Yen did in this movie.
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I was really confused with Mr. Nobody. He is basically Hallie Berry's character from 3 but a dude (and a way better actor), which makes me think they only had him in that role because they somehow couldn't get Hallie Berry to come back.

Donnie Yen is entertaining as fuck to watch, but there were so many times during every fight scene he was in that I was audibly laughing because all anyone had to do was just shoot him in the head and they all kept wasting their time trying to ambush/hide from a fucking blind guy. Especially his one on one with John in the room with all the glass boxes.

I was fucking dying of laughter when John was hiding behind colored glass screens that only served to obscure John's vision versus the fucking blind guy.

I will also say that Keanu was more or less sleepwalking through this film. He really just didn't give a single fuck and I couldn't tell if that was the intent because the character is at the end of his rope or Keanu being sleepy and not really giving a fuck about the character anymore.
 
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After seeing that Scott Adkins would be playing a weird guy in a fatsuit, I was surprised they let his character get some hits on on John Wick. I can't help but think this movie'll give some more mainstream exposure to on-screen fighting talents like Adkins and Argentinian action star Marko Zaror, who faced off in direct-to-video gems like Undisputed III and Savage Dog, directed by DTV powerhouse Jesse Johnson (though to be honest I actually liked the fight in that film between Adkins and Cung Le a bit better.)


Though this isn't the first movie where he played a guy with a mouth full of messed up metal teeth.

 
Looks like the reviews are in, and at the very least, it's doing much better than any capeshit released in the last few years.


I won't keep my hopes up because honestly, they've stretched the story/plot much much longer than they should have.

Here's a recap for anyone (like me) who needs it:


And seeing as I knew from the start that there was gonna be a 5th one, this doesn't come as a surprise.

 
Chilson said:
The first film is unsurprisingly still the best one. The acting was superb, the action scenes way better when everyone wasn't wearing the retarded bulletproof clothing and using medieval weaponry (It felt properly modern and realistic is all I am saying), the villain was amazing, the writing was *chef's kiss* and proved you could have an action film that was extremely well written at the same time in modern Hollywood, and I still think the movie's worldbuilding was far better when we knew almost nothing about the world.
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I have this feeling that the climax must have been copied practically verbatim from some spaghetti western or Hong Kong action movie, Tarantino-style. As for the rest of the plot, it's like they were chasing the audience that watches more video game streamers than scripted television or movies.

I hope everybody caught the bit in where the ceiling lamp's shadow on the German guy looks like a swastika. BRAVO.

Ahriman said:
Looks like the reviews are in, and at the very least, it's doing much better than any capeshit released in the last few years.
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I'm a little surprised at how well-received it is. I skipped 3 and remember literally nothing whatsoever about the plot of 2 or how it ended. I didn't feel lost. The Evil Council of Bad Guys are still trying to get the good guy (John Something... I forget). I think you could pass this off as John Wick Part 2 to somebody who didn't know about the other two movies. The four of them combined must be longer than e.g. The Lord of the Rings, what the hell even happened in them?
 
Sniperwoof said:
Wrong group of slant eyes. They're actually homages to Hong Kong gun fu flicks like Hard Boiled.
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I mean the world-building. John was raised from a young age by a slavshit global organization into a super assassin for another global organization with super assassins of varying ethnicities. It's like a background for one of those super edgy mangas.
 
God of Nothing said:
I mean the world-building. John was raised from a young age by a slavshit global organization into a super assassin for another global organization with super assassins of varying ethnicities. It's like a background for one of those super edgy mangas.
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Sounds like the plot behind Hitman Absolution.
 
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xXx: State of the Union said:
I'm seeing a bunch of reviewers say this is the finale of John Wick?

So they aren't doing a 5th one now?
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Its very up in the air because Keanu seems to be not very interested and 4's ending is as clean an ending as you can get with this franchise, and yes I know there is some ambiguity but not much.

Its kind of hard to do a 5th John Wick without John Wick after all. Though with how much money 4 has made, they will probably do it with or without Keanu. It will be undoubtedly shit, but Hollywood doesn't care about that.
 
Chilson said:
Its very up in the air because Keanu seems to be not very interested and 4's ending is as clean an ending as you can get with this franchise, and yes I know there is some ambiguity but not much.

Its kind of hard to do a 5th John Wick without John Wick after all. Though with how much money 4 has made, they will probably do it with or without Keanu. It will be undoubtedly shit, but Hollywood doesn't care about that.
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Huh, maybe I'll go see it by myself then.

I know they're doing spin offs and shit, but I really thought they were just going to keep the main series on life support until it was completely run dry (which I guess arguably it is already but yeah)
 
We're already confirmed to be getting a spinoff starring a female assassin from John Wick's weird pseudo Belarusian crime family with Ballerina as a working title.

Supposedly a Cain spinoff film is happening too.
 
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