John Wick: Chapter 4
dir. Chad Stahelski (2023)
More, more, more of the same, adding a blind swordsman who might as well not be, and close-quarters gun battles made magically palatable (the director hopes) by talk of physics-defying Kevlar formalwear. Wick’s epitaph should have read ‘Wished he’d tried disguising himself.’
John Wick 3: Parabellum
dir. Chad Stahelski (2019)
“Every action has consequences.” Or not. Certainly not every John Wick film, except to lay and explode its one-note phoenix egg. The franchise by now constitutes a truly remarkable study in sensory overload indoctrination and the excising of all non-kinetic story elements.
John Wick, Chapter 2
dir. Chad Stahelski (2017)
A truly pointless sequel, expanding the scope of Wick’s vendetta while whittling away what few shreds were left of its pathos. Stylistic close-quarter gunfights play on repeat while the viewer sinks into reality-warped shell shock at the prospect of two further instalments.
John Wick
dir. Chad Stahelski (2014)
The Matrix meets Games of Thrones meets Kurosawa. Understated action-noir, relentless in drive but coloured almost Nordic in visual desaturation. Keanu Reeves sits like Yertle the Turtle at the precarious limit of his emotional range, wobbling first-billed and steepled atop his co-stars.