I probably could have posted this article sooner, but I kinda forgot about it. I've kind of casually decided to try and have an article on this website for every month of the year, but I hadn't really decided if I wanted this one to come out sooner or later. Time passed, and here we are. So I apologize if these reviews are not as timely as they could be. Still, they were all pretty dang good!
So, after 4 movies in 9 years, we finally get the end (supposedly) of the violent life and times of John Wick. What started off as a slick little independent action flick has suddenly become a blockbuster franchise, and yet, what has made the series so good hasn't been lost in this latest film at all. Sure, the set-pieces are bigger and the stakes try to go higher, but the focus remains on high quality action scenes shot in a way that lets the viewer appreciate everything going on.
After John Wick had the audacity to not die at the end of the third film, he comes back, this time with a vengeance, literally. Tired of being manipulated by the High Table, the organization that manages all these assassin's guilds around the world, John decides its finally time to take the fight to them in a one-man war. Well, not quite, as he still has a few friends hanging around to help him get to where he needs to be, but even they debate whether or not they should lend a hand. Standing against him is Marquis Vincent de Gramont, a member of the High Table who sees John Wick as a pest and wants to dispose of him and everyone who was friends with him, even going so far as to blow up the New York Continental. Gramont then decides to bring back another retired hitman, a blind man named Caine and a good friend of John's, to go after John and put him down. In the middle of all of this is a bounty hunter who just goes by Mr. Nobody, working angles of his own.
So, unsurprisingly, it's another excuse to host a bunch of over-the-top set pieces and action scenes as John Wick avoids the High Table's men while setting up his own advantages, eventually going from an Osaka version of the Continental, to a German night club, and eventually a massive street fight in Paris, all to set up a final duel between John and Gramont. Naturally, it's quite the thrill ride getting there, as John has to fight his way through a variety of locales and dealing with mook after mook, and the occasional mid-boss fight. Donnie Yen nearly steals the show as Caine, and Shamier Anderson does good work as Mr. Nobody, both setting up some very sympathetic anti-heroes for John to deal with. However, it's the action that takes center stage, and it is glorious. They've definitely leaned a little harder on the flashy cinematography this time around, but otherwise, the camera is very wide, allowing the audience to see every blow, gunshot, and leap of faith with crystal clarity. More action movies should be directed this way.
I do have a few nitpicks. Some of the fights do go on for a little too long, and often feature beats that feel like they're just drawing things out for their own sake. The story also struggles a little towards the end, trying to build up this final duel as big and meaningful, and I don't think it quite gets there. However, these are small things, and don't really detract from all the well-choreographed action going on. Highlights include an intense fight in the streets of Paris as combatants are dodging cars as much as each other, a massive top-down action sequence reminiscent of the video game Hotline Miami, and pretty much everything Donnie Yen does as Caine (he's seriously a delight to watch). While I still think the second film is the best of this series, Chapter 4 does an excellent job of wrapping things up by being exactly what it wants to be: an enjoyable, bombastic popcorn film.
Having grown up playing many of the games featuring the now iconic portly plumber, this movie has been on my radar for a while. I vaguely remember seeing the first film they did back in the 90s, but I figured I'd save myself from the bother of revisiting it, as I understand it has aged quite poorly. So instead, let's dig into this one, which turned out to be a pretty decent cartoon interpretation of these characters and their lore.
Mario and Luigi are brothers starting their own plumbing business, but things are rough at the start. However, when a massive plumbing problem sends the brothers down below into the sewers of Brooklyn, they stumble into a warp pipe and find themselves split up, with Mario going to the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi falling into the Dark Lands of Bowser's Domain. Soon, Mario joins Princess Peach to take on Bowser's desire to take over the world and marry the princess himself, hoping to rescue his brother somewhere along the way.
At first, the movie takes it a bit slow, establishing the titular brothers in Brooklyn, but once they hit the Mushroom Kingdom, the movie becomes a rushed blur of references and gimmicks that vaguely resemble a story. This break-neck pacing, lack of exposition or explanations, and the annoying sidekick characters all feed together into what I call "Kids' movie syndrome." The assumption is made that if you don't have a wacky or amazing thing happening every second, the kids will get bored and your movie will fail (a notion that I consider to be wrong, but it seems to persist regardless). In short, the story and character development take a serious backseat.
However, the stuff they need to get right, they absolutely nail. Every time I rolled my eyes at the typical kid's movie junk, I would be hit with two or three nostalgia bombs, often in the form of clever background cameos, funny dialogue references, or iconic music cues in the soundtrack. In fact, Brian Tyler has done some great work here, weaving all kinds of video game themes into the symphonic score. If there is one thing the movie has expertly carried over from the video games, it's their sense of fun and wonder at a strange, colorful world to play through, even if it only makes sense to those who grew up with the games. Fortunately, that includes multiple generations, and that's why the movie is blowing up at the box office. While I don't know if this is the beginning of a new Smash Brothers cinematic universe, I won't deny I'd be very interested in what Nintendo chooses to do from here, as they have given themselves a pretty solid starting point with this one.
After enjoying a handful of Guy Ritchie's more comical material, it's interesting to see him go for such a serious movie. However, between his stellar pacing, excellent cinematography, and focus on the characters' emotions, he has provided an excellent war film that really brings out the drama between the two main leads and how they are bound together by their circumstances.
Towards the end of the War in Afghanistan, US sergeant John Kinley loses his interpreter to a bomb attack, getting a man named Ahmed to replace him. After trying to follow leads on Taliban weapons, only to find nothing, John and his team get pretty discouraged. Then, when one lead sends them pretty far from base (and thus support), they get ambushed, forcing John and Ahmed to go into the Afghan wilderness to escape their enemies. Then, when John himself gets hurt, Ahmed carries him across the land for several days, before finally getting him back to base. From there, the movie takes an interesting turn, following John back to his home in California and dealing with a growing sense of survivor's guilt, knowing that he's safe at home and Ahmed is still in hiding back in Afghanistan. Eventually, this guilt starts to drive him mad, until he feels he has to go back to rescue him in return.
While this may have been an American production, you can tell this movie was not directed by an American. Instead of shaky-cam nonsense, tired action clichés, and intense war scenes powered by a bombastic soundtrack, this movie aims for a much slower, thoughtful pace, letting the emotions and circumstances of the two main characters really take center stage. Even the action has this muted, tension-based tone, where you just want the heroes to get out alive. The soundtrack goes for this minimal approach, often featuring just a few cellos and percussion in a droning, tense score that augments the situations the characters are in. Through it all, Ritchie's cinematography allows the camera to become a part of the story, and often uses interesting drone cameras to capture unique shots. The only real nitpick I can think of is that there is a cat-and-mouse section in the middle that does drag on a little too long. Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim have great chemistry as the two leads, and when Dar Salim has to carry the movie on his own for a while, he does so admirably. Overall, this was a great film. If you want a movie that's more about the soldiers than the war they're fighting, this is highly recommended!
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