Review: John Wick gets even more stylish in fourth episode

A visit to Paris needs to be on everybody’s bucket record, even John Wick. The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre — what higher approach to refresh your soul, whilst you kick everybody else’s bucket?

The un-retired murderer does certainly dive into the Metropolis of Lights within the creative and thrilling “John Wick: Chapter 4” a sequel which elevates and expands the franchise. The fourth installment is extra fashionable, extra elegant and extra bonkers — sort of like Paris itself.

After we final noticed Wick, he was half useless within the gutter after being shot and tumbling a number of tales off the Resort Continental in New York. He was on the blacklist with a $14 million value on his head. (Inflation has even hit this franchise: The bounty swells to $40 million by the top of half 4.)

Wick, as at all times performed with monosyllabic and brooding depth by Keanu Reeves, leaves his customary path of demise, however there’s a shift right here. So typically the prey within the earlier motion pictures, Wick is on the offense within the fourth, taking his calls for on to The Excessive Desk, the group of shadowy crime lords that hold order.

This time, the Desk’s sadistic frontman is a dandy known as the Marquis, performed with coiled menace by Invoice Skarsgård, who spouts issues like: “Second likelihood is the refuge of males who fail.” However he’s a secret coward, so be happy to boo loudly.

The nine-fingered Wick desires to finish his nightmare, naturally, by killing everybody. His too-cool frenemy, Ian McShane’s Winston, challenges him to assume otherwise: “Have you ever realized nothing?” he asks the person who, to be sincere, he shot within the final film. “You’ll run out of bullets earlier than they run out of heads.”

Returning author Shay Hatten, together with co-writer Michael Finch, have give you a potential resolution for Wick: Win an old style duel with the Marquis. Win and be free, lose and be buried.

Not so quick, in fact. Alongside the way in which, Wick should in some way deal with the blind martial arts grasp Caine, performed by Donnie Yen, bringing humor and verve to a fighter who’s tasked with both slaying his one-time good friend or have his daughter killed.

There’s additionally Killa, a jumbo-sized card shark performed by martial arts star Scott Adkins, and The Tracker, a really gifted bounty hunter performed by Shamier Anderson. Don’t neglect a swarm of Paris-based newbie bounty-hunters and armored ninjas who appear as plentiful as town’s baguettes.

All of the touches you anticipate from a Wick flick are right here — a cool canine, hand-to-hand fight amid glass show instances, candles and Christian iconography, galloping horses, the screech of steel swords and a brand new approach to damage somebody, on this case, a single taking part in card. We go to Germany, Japan and finish in France, even going to a disused subway platform.

Returning director Chad Stahelski loves combining neon with gloom and now has the funds to hire out house within the Louvre. Of the 14 motion sequences — sure, 14 — just a few are really mind-blowing, like a struggle in the midst of the site visitors circle across the Arc de Triomphe and a drone capturing a sophisticated set piece in a constructing involving what’s being known as a dragon’s breath shotgun. Repeating that final bit: dragon’s breath shotgun.

If there was a little bit of a slog via would-be assassins in “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” — you understand, shoot, stab, repeat — there’s none right here. One sequence on a set of outside stairs in Paris is sort of riotously humorous as knives and weapons blast away, whereas the filmmakers add water and hearth to a nightclub rave scene that places clueless dancers subsequent to axe-throwing murderers.

A shout-out to costume designer Paco Delgado, who has outfitted the baddie gunmen in light-colored three-piece fits and fight boots, and the manager baddies in fitted magnificence with extravagant cravat-style ties. One of many movie’s saddest components is saying goodbye to Lance Reddick, who performed Continental Resort concierge Charon and died on the eve of the film’s debut.

How does this all finish? Really, on one thing of a deflating be aware. Earlier within the movie, Wick’s Japan-based good friend Shimazu — performed awesomely by Hiroyuki Sanada — had requested a query that eternally hangs over this franchise: “Have you ever given any thought to how this ends?”

This chapter ends in demise, in fact. However that’s additionally the way it lives.

“John Wick: Chapter 4,” a Lionsgate launch that hits theaters Friday, is rated R for “pervasive sturdy violence and a few language.” Working time: 169 minutes. Three and a half stars out of 4. ___ MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Underneath 17 requires accompanying father or mother or grownup guardian. ___ On-line: https://johnwick.film

___ Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits