Critics love it, audiences love it — heck, everybody loves it.
But there are still a few John Wick moments that have fans baying for blood.
Warning: spoilers ahead for John Wick: Chapter 4.
John Wick: Chapter 4 ups the stakes early on by killing off a fan-favorite recurring
character: Charon, the cool, collected concierge of the New York Continental.
"How good to see you so soon, Mr. Wick."
What makes this moment even more shocking is the fact that Charon is coldly executed
in retaliation for a problem that is entirely outside of his control.
He essentially dies to make sure we understand our new villain, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont,
is a really bad dude.
After years of faithful service in the name of the High Table, Charon goes out as collateral
damage — and it's all because Winston doesn't hit John Wick with a fatal shot at the end
of the last movie.
It's harsh, to say the least.
This death hits especially hard, as John Wick: Chapter 4 landed in theaters right on the
heels of Lance Reddick's sudden death at the age of 60.
This adds an unfortunate "too soon" cloud over the story beat.
As with many of Reddick's best roles, the actor brings a calm and clear-eyed gravitas
to Charon that cements the Continental as an authoritative edifice of power and meaning.
He also plays fantastically off the expressive, wry tones of Ian McShane's performance.
It's a tremendous shame that John Wick: Chapter 4 will be his last appearance as the character:
Reddick had been set to reprise the role in the franchise's Ballerina spin-off movie.
The first two sequels to John Wick basically begin in media res.
If you're not familiar, this is story-speak for "mid fight scene"; these action-packed
features pick up the moment the prior movies leave off.
John Wick: Chapter 4, by contrast, starts remarkably slow, and it takes the movie a
ponderous half-hour to set the table for the first big fight scene at the Osaka Continental.
Relative to the quick pace that's made the franchise successful so far, this is a bold
gamble for the fourth movie to take.
"Just have fun out there."
It's bolder still because it requires the audience to have a better-than-cursory recall
of the John Wick timeline thus far.
As some fans have pointed out, it's actually kind of hard to recall the details of the
Wick-verse's archaic plot mechanics, even for devoted fans.
The first three movies primarily focus on a multi-sensory barrage of fight scenes that
just don't leave much RAM in your mind to grasp all the markers, tattoos, clans, and
odd bits of Latin.
And, despite how long it takes to get going, John Wick: Chapter 4 doesn't work too hard
to explain what's going on.
Some viewers might have to Google who the dude in the desert John kills in the beginning
even is to understand what's at stake.
The villains of the John Wick franchise take many shapes and forms.
Chapter 4 takes the path untrodden with the Marquis, its main antagonist, who is mostly
frightening because of what he represents.
Just like John Wick himself, the High Table — of which the Marquis is a senior member
— is more of an idea that can't be killed than an actual group of mortal people.
The Marquis cements this by acting as the sadistic personification of ancient forces
like greed and power.
John Wick: Chapter 4 finds a particularly brutal way to let us know the Marquis is more
twisted than usual: The vicious villain subjects Mr. Nobody to a horrific test of will.
Stabbing the bounty hunter through the hand, the Marquis essentially demands that he pulls
his hand out through the knife's blade instead of pulling the blade upwards.
Mr. Nobody, apparently willing to do anything for a shot at the John Wick contract, complies
in a squeamish bit of realistic effects work.
Though it's a moment that fits perfectly with the over-the-top John Wick style, it's more
visceral and intense than the franchise's normal fists-and-guns melees — prompting
at least a few groans of disgust in theaters.
In general, the John Wick movies rely more on the poetry of their action sequences than
the dramatic tension of the narrative.
This approach shows the most strain in John Wick: Chapter 4, which slows down between
action set pieces to give us time to think.
What this means, of course, is that audience members are a lot more likely to think, "Wait,
what's actually going on here?"
For example, Caine and Mr. Nobody follow John Wick around the entire movie.
They're sort of trying to kill him, but they always manage to let him go.
At no point is this more confusing than when they interrupt his face-off with Killa Harkan,
a ruthless crime lord who killed his former mentor.
"You want to kill him, I want to kill him…
What about you, Mr. Wick?"
It's unclear why either mercenary is waiting so long to kill John Wick, or why John himself
is acting so coy about attacking Killa.
In truth, the whole scene really just seems like a thin excuse for him to end up with
the famous "dead man's hand" of aces and eights during a poker game.
It also contains one of the most confusing Caine-related moments: Despite being blind,
he can tell exactly what his hand is.
Star Wars fans might at least enjoy this unintentional callback to Rogue One, in which actor Donnie
Yen also plays a blind character who can still sort of see — but everyone else will be
more than a little lost.
Perhaps in tacit acknowledgement that the audience might be getting somewhat desensitized
to human-on-human violence after four movies, John Wick: Chapter 4 throws in a very different
sort of heart-skipping moment, late in its runtime.
This scene goes back to the first movie's potent well by placing a dog in jeopardy — although
this time, it's a thankfully brief moment of canine peril.
Mr. Nobody's faithful companion has more than won us over by the time he gets rudely tossed
into a windshield by the Marquis' top henchman, Chidi.
Despite the fact that he all but shatters the glass and bounces into the street, the
dog gets right back up and barks to let us know he's okay.
It's a sudden shock delivered during an otherwise surreally choreographed scene set beside Paris'
Arc de Triomphe, and it hits hard.
Some fans, perhaps still scarred from the first movie, have even taken to platforms
like Reddit to make sure the dog lives before they actually see the movie.
Money makes the world go 'round, and that's especially true in the John Wick universe.
How do we know this?
By the fact that, as the bounty on John Wick grows, hundreds upon hundreds of people decide
that the price is suddenly right to take him on themselves, even though the many previous
attempts on the life of Baba Yaga have failed.
Yet, there are still exceptions to this rule.
For most of John Wick: Chapter 4, it seems like Mr. Nobody is the rare character to realize this.
He seems content to simply track John from place to place and try to bilk the Marquis
for a finder's fee.
But, late in the game, we learn that even Mr. Nobody has a price: $40 million dollars;
after this, he goes all-out in an effort to bag John.
This happens after he gets the drop on the unkillable protagonist multiple times — sadly,
Mr. Nobody loses a fair amount of intrigue when we realize that he's just like people
who only play the lottery when it gets over $1 billion.
When he changes his mind again after John saves his dog's life, it endears him to us,
but it doesn't make his character any more coherent.
"You ready, John?"
"Yeah."
Even before the release of John Wick: Chapter 4, fans pointed out that its 169 minute runtime
is seriously lengthy.
This is a serious departure for the franchise: The first three movies in the series endeared
themselves to fans, in part, by being sprints instead of marathons.
Even the biggest John Wick fan might feel like the fourth installment needs to be shorter.
It doesn't help that this feels like part of a pernicious trend in modern cinema.
All kinds of recent movies seem to be pushing three hours these days, and the John Wick
formula doesn't lend itself too well to a bloated runtime.
The movie's length really puts a strain on the scenes between action sequences, which
mostly consist of characters explaining made-up High Table rules that are kinda hard to follow.
Besides, who wants to miss a killer action scene because their bladder just can't take it?
Give us an intermission next time!
Yes, you'd better believe it: John Wick dies at the end.
The same John Wick we've watched kill thousands of people in a few days over the course of
the first three movies.
The same John Wick who easily survived getting hit by four cars and falling down 500 concrete steps.
The unconquerable, merciless Baba Yaga, whose name is in the title of every movie.
Our protagonist's death in what might be the final chapter of the main franchise has fans
shocked and divided.
Some feel like it undermines the whole story, while others are hoping it's a total fake-out.
After so much violence and death, it really does feel like John Wick's defining character
trait is his ability to survive in spite of impossible odds.
In a way, he exists more as a force of nature than a man.
It's mildly satisfying that his actions help Caine become free of the High Table and allow
Winston to get the Continental restored — but for John, the outcome is no different than
if he'd died at any of the hundreds of earlier points in the saga when someone has tried
to kill him.
With no one left to avenge, there's a strange and potent kind of beauty in John Wick surviving
for his own sake.
His apparent death, in contrast, seems to support the Marquis' more nihilistic view.
He sees John as essentially defined by death, and according to this movie, that may be true
— and it could be the final word on the matter.
John Wick: Chapter 4 attempts to come full circle as John sits dying on the steps of
the Sacré-Cœur.
His life flashes before his eyes, and we see him with his wife as he lingers on their brief
and lovely marriage.
But, as some fans have been quick to point out, Daisy, the adorable beagle his wife left
him after her death — the dog whose murder draws him back into the assassin world in
the first place — is nowhere to be seen.
"Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back!"
Now, we mean no offense to the memory of Helen Wick.
John loved her immensely.
But Daisy deserves to be in the montage as well.
John cared so much for her that he kicked off an entire cinematic saga in response to
her untimely demise.
Seeing her fail to appear in the montage is kind of like watching the Oscars snub people
by leaving them out of the "in memoriam" segment.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is the first film in the John Wick franchise to feature an after-credits
scene, much to the consternation of many fans who, not expecting one, left the theater early.
It's disappointing, from a certain angle, to see a movie franchise once confident enough
in its own appeal to eschew such ending teases of future events suddenly bow to the trend.
It's also kind of a big ask to make of an audience that just sat through the longest
John Wick movie yet.
Moreover, the fans who do make it all the way might be disappointed, as the scene itself
is maddeningly brief.
Akira, unsurprisingly, has tracked Caine down to avenge her father's death.
In a public square, she approaches a seemingly oblivious Caine and whips out a knife — but
the screen cuts to black, leaving both of their fates unknown.
This is frustrating enough on its own, but John Wick: Chapter 4 also disappoints grief-stricken
fans who might have hoped that a post-credits scene would hint that John Wick isn't really
dead after all.