Style, grace and elegance aren't terms usually associated with modern American action movies.
The genre is full of high-octane explosions, brutality, and bloodshed.
But when it comes to the craft of filmmaking, they can often be unmemorable.
John Wick changed all that.
The Keanu Reeves-led revenge thriller is epically violent, but it's elegant violence, captured
in a way we don't get to see too often.
The character's sharp suits and sharper shooting have left a huge mark on the action movie
landscape, including in a few ways you might not yet have noticed.
Here's how John Wick rewrote the rules for modern action.
Low on ammo
To understand John Wick's influence on action movies, you have to look at the state of the
genre in the years before its release.
Seven years after the The Bourne Ultimatum rounded off its own influential trilogy, the
genre felt tired, full of same-old structures, and stale premises.
There were occasional gems, like the old-man action of the first Taken or the Indonesian
import The Raid.
But for the most part, mainstream Hollywood action was plagued with insubstantial, CGI-heavy
spectacle.
Success stories were frequently genre hybrids, such as Lucy or Edge of Tomorrow.
All-out action was reduced to the likes of A Good Day to Die Hard or White House Down.
Movies like these feel like half-baked efforts, full of ridiculous spectacle that looks fake,
with no weight.
Audiences were lulled into complacency.
When John Wick came along and had the guts to send a puppy to doggy heaven, people weren't
ready for the impact.
I know gun-fu
John Wick's biggest asset is its energetic implementation of gun-fu.
A mixture of kung fu and gunplay, the cinematic fighting style was first popularized by Hong
Kong action director John Woo.
Woo's movies helped create a subgenre of Heroic Bloodshed.
These stories feature characters who value honor and integrity, and follow strict codes
of ethics.
Often the protagonists will stop at nothing to exact revenge, with the resulting carnage
made more palatable by the sense of morality we know they have.
John Wick is part of this tradition, but what made it so different?
Why did we become so attached to a blank slate, nobody of a character we'd never met before?
"That f---ing nobody… is John Wick."
The dance of doom
Directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch made their marks in Hollywood as stuntmen,
most notably on the The Matrix, where Stahelski performed as Keanu Reeves' stunt double.
This boots-on-the-ground perspective gave the pair a unique perspective when it came
to shooting action as directors.
They saw that camera operators often regarded action sequences as stressful exercises in
"hiding imperfections," so they rehearsed and choreographed each scene with the camera
people included, leaving no room for surprises when it came time to shoot.
For authenticity, the duo was determined to use as much footage of Reeves as possible.
The actor performed the vast majority of the stunts himself, spending four months of pre-production
honing his techniques.
Training included Japanese jiu-jitsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, standing judo, and firearms training
designed for close-quarters combat.
The result is fight choreography that flows freely in a kind of brutal ballet.
Violence in John Wick is so stylized that it comes off as a hypnotic dance, performed
by a professional hitman and his unfortunate victims.
Stylish shooters
John Wick proved the stuntmen-turned-directors understand much more than just fight choreography.
The cinematography of John Wick is as stylish as the man himself.
Criminal underworlds are supposed to be murky, gritty, full of dirt, yet Wick's world is
saturated in otherworldly hues, his fights taking place inside of exclusive clubs, ornate
hotels, and mirrored museums.
The fights themselves are stylish, too.
John Wick rejected the sharply edited, frantic action that has come to be a crutch in the
genre.
Instead, wide shots and long takes capture every punch, kick, and pistol whip.
You're left wanting to re-watch the movie just to admire the ways its setpieces are
staged.
An underworld worth visiting
John Wick's world-building is unmatched in the action genre.
The story takes place within an intricate network centering around the Continental,
a hotel in New York City which serves as a safe haven for assassins.
The universe is as detailed as it is original.
Winston, the hotel's owner, is a charming and affable enigma with evident power.
Outside of the hotel, special gold coins are exchanged for criminals-only services from
seemingly legitimate businesses.
Tailors offer bulletproof suits, and sommeliers are experts in pistols, instead of pinot.
It's an underworld you can feel intimately, even if it's never all that explained.
Fight like Wick
Years on from John Wick's release, the ripples on the movie on the industry can be felt everywhere
you look.
Put simply, vengeance and well-done violence are very "in."
One heir of the style is Leitch's own Atomic Blonde, a spiritual sibling to Wick.
Charlize Theron as even said she was inspired to dip into the Cold War-era action flick
because of her admiration for John Wick.
Leitch then went on to up the action stakes as director for Deadpool 2.
Another John Wick producer, Basil Iwanyk, has said the combat in the 2018 Robin Hood
was inspired by Wick, saying to Collider,
"The stuff we're doing with the bow and arrow, it's the same thing that Keanu does with the
gun."
The producers of the remake of cult classic Highlander clearly have the same idea, hiring
Stahelski to apply Wick's style to that movie's swordplay as director.
In short, John Wick has inspired action filmmakers to up their game, with highly-skilled assassin
flicks starring men and women both.
There's Jennifer Lawrence's Red Sparrow, Taraji P. Henson's Proud Mary, and Jennifer Garner's
Peppermint, a revenge thriller that's been described as "John Wick with a female protagonist".
"I will kill every one of you.
And then I'll pretty much wing it from there."
Checking in?
John Wick's flair for world-building has also spread across the action genre.
The Hitman's Bodyguard includes an assassin underworld similar to Wick, and the Jodie
Foster-starring Hotel Artemis has a premise that's heavily reminiscent of The Continental.
That movie stars Foster as the manager of a hotel which doubles as a safe space for
criminals to seek medical treatment and lay low.
In other words, the telltale marks of John Wick are now everywhere, and there are no
signs of the phenomenon slowing down.
Wick's stylish action has smashed the proverbial sledgehammer into conventional genre fare,
unearthing a winning formula.
The Boogeyman has changed the action movie, and he's only getting started.
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