John Wick 4 is an extremely extra, exhilarating thrill ride

Every new John Wick is a propulsive, captivating movie that cements its status as the premier action franchise.

Every John Wick movie is a thrill ride. Picture: Murray Close

John Wick is extremely extra. Everything about the franchise is over the top, from the rocketing body count to its neo-noir, almost gothic, style.

Restraint went out the window in the opening credits of the first movie, but that’s why the franchise has always been such an exhilarating thrill ride. And this fourth instalment delivers on that promise, surpassing even its predecessors.

It might be stretched out at almost three hours, but John Wick 4 is a pulsating experience that clips along beautifully. You’ll be so enraptured by all the action, and Keanu Reeves’ captivating screen presence, you won’t even notice the time.

When a character says to John Wick, “No one, not even you, can kill everyone,” you draw your breath in, and brace yourself for the pulverising onslaught that’s about the occur.

John Wick 4 is a narrative climax. After going up against the crime lords council – the High Table – John (Reeves) remains its number one target. It might have been coming for him before, but now it’s really coming for him – and anyone who might be an ally.

The inedible screen presence of Keanu Reeves. Picture: StudioCanal

Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon (the late Lance Reddick) are punished, and the New York Continental Hotel destroyed by the main antagonist of this chapter, the sadistic Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard).

Gramont has enlisted – more like extorted – a former assassin and friend of John’s, Caine (Donnie Yen), to take him out. Meanwhile, in the wings, a bounty hunter named Mr Nobody (Shamier Anderson) has a prodigious talent for tracking down John, and he’s negotiating a bigger payday with Gramont.

All John wants is to get out and find a modicum of peace.

In the almost-decade since the John Wick franchise punched its way into the cinema canon with its propulsive and inventive action choreography and its baroque, self-serious vibe, it’s captured the Zeitgeist.

Unapologetically unleashing its balletic violence, a mixture of gunplay and jiu jitsu, John Wick declared itself as a serious action brand thanks largely to director Chad Stahelski, a former stuntman who, along with the uncredited co-director of the first film, David Leitch, committed to elaborate stunts that had a dynamic rhythm.

John Wick remains the premier action franchise. Picture: StudioCanal

Audiences weren’t watching just another bang-bang shoot-em-up with no style or stakes. The action was key. And casting Hong Kong cinema legend Donnie Yen and Japanese martial arts icon Hiroyuki Sanada in John Wick 4 further reinforces its authority as the premier action thriller.

Each new movie has been forced to become more inventive, more electrifying and more complex. John Wick 4 has several high-octane set pieces, and some of them shot on location in Paris and Berlin, which gives it a sense of scale.

Of course, John Wick has never been just about the action sequences, the franchise has always emphasised its high drama with its ambitious, saturated visuals. When you have a tableau of Reeves standing in a frame in front of a neon red sign as pink cherry blossoms blow through in slow-motion, you have to appreciate how much consideration is given to the way it looks. And it looks amazing.

Donnie Yen joins the franchise as a former assassin. Picture: StudioCanal

Four movies in, you have to be prepared to suspend your disbelief.

In the real world, you couldn’t leave behind a mountain of bodies without the SWAT team being called in, nor is there that much traffic circling the Arc de Triomphe at five o’clock in the morning.

It’s as if John Wick exists in an alternate universe, where its grandiosity and malleable moral code make sense. Where even ruthless killers can be heroes.

Rating: 4/5

John Wick Chapter 4 is in cinemas now

Originally published as John Wick 4 is an extremely extra, exhilarating thrill ride