Film Review - John Wick Chapter 4 (2023)

John Wick Chapter 4 is the fourth John Wick film and Chad Stahelski is directing again and Keanu Reeves stars as John Wick who this time must contend with Bill Skarsgard (Pennywise in the recent IT films) as the Marquis Vincent de Gramont a member of the high table who wants Wick dead but the Baba Yaga never goes down without a fight.

John Wick 4 is a terrific time at the movies and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a cinema so far this year, yes this is a long movie at 169 minutes but like Avatar the Way of Water which despite its 192 minute runtime became the third biggest movie ever I wasn’t bothered by it and I feel it allows the action scenes to really breathe and play out at a good pace without needing to rush them along so we can get the story and plot moments going.

And speaking of the action scenes they are simply superb from an opening fight in an Osaka hotel to a Goldfinger esque owner of a Berlin nightclub to the final hour of the film in Paris each set piece fight scene is simply superb and are enhanced by the long runtime and I was never bored, Reeves commits to these moments even if some of them border on silly at times and he seems to be enjoying playing this character still even if the wear and tear might be starting to show.

As for the rest of the cast, Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane are good in their roles as is the late great Lance Reddick, Skarsgard is serviceable and is of service as the main villain while Clancy Brown, Hiroyuki Sanada and Donnie Yen are the highlights outside of Reeves.

Everytime Brown came on screen all I kept thinking was “The Kurgan” his role in Highlander while Sanada and Yen are very memorable in their roles as is Scott Adkins as Killa the Goldfinger esque owner of the Berlin nightclub and he really did remind me a lot of Gert Frobe from that film during his scenes.

And so that was John Wick Chapter 4 and its my favourite after the first film for sure now I liked 2 and 3 but not as much but this time the action and characters and decent enough villain work very well and I had a terrific time with it, 4 out of 5.