I had determined that I used to be out on the John Wick franchise after the third entry. The aesthetics of no matter universe these motion pictures are speculated to happen in had worn me down, the continued makes an attempt to make the “John Wick lore,” for lack of a greater time period, each legible and significant had turn out to be obstructive, and even the motion set items—the entire cause to observe a John Wick film, apart from having fun with Keanu Reeves’s more and more cockeyed portrayal of the character—had misplaced their shine. After watching the third film, I keep in mind pondering one thing like, Wow, that certain was a film about dangerous guys getting shot within the head at shut vary a number of occasions.
Anyway, I watched the fourth John Wick film yesterday as a result of I had nothing higher to do, and oh boy did I see lots of dangerous guys get shot within the head a number of occasions at shut vary. However! I additionally noticed one thing very humorous.
Let me set it up for you: John Wick is in Paris and he has to get to Sacré-Cœur Basilica by 6:03 a.m. in order that he can duel a man. In fact there are a number of dozen jerkoff assassins attempting to kill him whereas he makes his journey, however that is high quality. John Wick’s entire factor is traversing a metropolis whereas keeping off dozens of jerkoff assassins. Anyway, the massive factor about Sacré-Cœur is that it’s accessible through a staircase with 222 steps; John Wick finds himself doing battle with most of the aforementioned jerkoffs whereas ascending these steps, and when he lastly reaches the highest, this occurs (simply as soon as, not on a loop for 10 hours, though that additionally would have been good):
Individuals who make motion motion pictures nowadays want to recollect to do stuff like this. You possibly can’t open a streaming platform right this moment with out being confronted by a number of motion motion pictures from the identical faculty of high-gloss, stunt-forward aesthetics. The issue with that isn’t simply that every one these motion pictures find yourself wanting the identical, however that the motion itself loses any sense of vibrancy. Everybody’s simply attempting to out-do one another’s single-shot gun-fu scenes on the expense of constructing any motion that’s really, you already know, enjoyable. John Wick getting kicked within the chest and falling down 222 steps is principally a Buster Keaton bit.
The John Wick franchise is just not absolved for its sins simply because it put this scene within the fourth installment, nevertheless it was good to see some silliness injected again into one in all these motion pictures. Equally as essential because the stair scene was the choice to forged Donnie Yen as Wick’s shooting-and-slashing rival, and to let him play his character right into a wry and goofy sensibility that suffused his traces of dialogue and each second of his participation within the motion sequences (we won’t be acknowledging Scott Adkins in a fats swimsuit at the moment). It was good to observe one in all these motion pictures and have some enjoyable once more.
