John Wick: Chapter 4 4K Blu-ray Review (2024)

If you had a blast with the previous John Wick outings, spending the best part of three hours watching him kick, stab, shoot and nunchuck his way through another cast of increasingly grandstanding players will be a similarly fabulous ride.

It's easy to forget the origins of John Wick, as a relatively small, modestly budgeted, barely above DTV-level flick for once superstar Keanu Reeves who was presumed to be a long way from his peak at the time. It was a directorial debut too, for Chad Staheski (and David Leitch), Reeves' stunt team on the Matrix Trilogy. The end result, looking back, is a billion dollar franchise founded upon a really simple, highly effective, tremendously propulsive actioner, which resulted in a massive resurgence to Reeves' career, and catapulted the co-directors into their own stardom, as well as writer-creator Derek Kolstad.

After 2019's Parabellum, it was expected that we would get another entry - it hardly ended on a high, with the somewhat cliffhanger leaving things open for much more future mayhem and retribution. But COVID happened, and the planned John Wick 4 & 5 back-to-back shoot was jettisoned in favour of just getting one out of the gate. Even then, it took twice as long to come out, landing a long four years after the last entry. But if it is the last John Wick, then it's a solid finale with all the cracking action, bone-crunching martial arts, and colourfully staged insanity that fans have come to expect from the saga.

Following his recovery, Wick's on the loose again, this time intent on taking the fight to the High Table, tired of constantly being on the run, hunted by assassins from every angle. The assassins still come, with a new senior High Table member, The Marquis, commissioned to finish him off once and for all, wielding the full might of the Table behind him. Calling on a few old remaining friends, and also facing ones who have turned into opponents, Wick is going to have to kill a lot of people if he wants to finally end this deadly game.

... does absolutely everything you would expect from the franchise by now

Chapter 4 does absolutely everything you would expect from the franchise by now, and somehow - even four movies in - manages to maintain a sense of, if not originality, then certainly innovation when it comes to the action. The Wick series has always boasted a whole bunch of memorable moments, which either leave you grinning or flinching, or both, and this one's no different there, with nunchucks, a dog, swords, and dragon's breath standing out in a series of excellent locations, from the Osaka Continental - replete with Sumo bodyguards - to a German nightclub that is shot like something out of Blade. It's probably worth mentioning them again: nunchucks.

The casting is exceptional - better than any of the previous entries (we're a long way from the end of level scene being a rainy fistfight with Michael Nyvquist) - with Lawrence Fishburne and Ian McShane returning (as well as, soberingly tragically, the late, great, Lance Reddick) but Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada stealing the show. The latter, as an old friend of Wick's, paired up with his daughter, played by Rina Sawayama, brings tremendous gravitas to the movie - as is his way - and gets a fabulous scene or two with Yen. And if you thought Reeves was in excellent shape for his age, just wait until you see Donnie Yen in action. Sure, he might be playing the most ridiculous blind swordsman since Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury, but you don't care, it's just an excuse for Yen to show off, and it works. Then you have Scott Adkins, not that you could possibly recognise him, in an absolutely superb Sammo Hung-inspired scene-stealing cameo. It's just a tremendous cast.

Reeves, of course, has made this franchise very much his own, and it's been a more consistent one than his Matrix series for sure. He's an absolute legend, almost superhuman now in terms of body damage, but still enjoying some fabulous setpieces across Paris, and learning some new skills for the task (cough NUNCHUCKS cough). Chapter 4 is a pretty fitting conclusion to the chaos that started all those years back, although here's hoping he's got more in the tank because, as the almost three hours of this movie seem to have demonstrated, you can clearly never have enough of John Wick.